


All Living Things

by Semianonymity



Category: Toriko (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Demons, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semianonymity/pseuds/Semianonymity
Summary: In a world where summoning a demon is the worst kind of evil, because demons are creatures of nothing but unending appetite, unfocused destruction, Komatsu is kidnapped to be used as a summoning sacrifice. So he makes a ridiculous offer, and the simple gifts of food and love make a difference. All living things change.





	1. A Long Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slow start, but I hope you like it anyway!

Komatsu thrashed in the middle of the summoning circle, but he was bound too tightly, hand and foot, to disrupt any of the lines. And even that—it had a chance, depending on what part of the pattern he interrupted, to let loose a demon into the world, instead of interrupting the summoning.

Instead, he shook, sprawled gracelessly, painfully, with his arms twisted back and behind him, and he gasped and choked on his own tears. It had been an hour since he'd been grabbed off the street. His jacket still had the smell of sauteed garlic sticking to it. They'd thrown him into the circle, unwilling to risk stepping inside the unbroken lines of a demon-circle even when it was inactive. It had left a gritty scrape down his cheek—no need to worry about infection, there just wasn't enough _time—_ but except for that, there wasn't a scratch on him. They hadn't spilled his blood. It had been left for the demon to eat, along with the rest of him, right down to his soul.

The chanting stopped, leaving sudden silence except for the wild pounding of his pulse. And the rush of wind as the demon took form, mystical energy weaving physicality out of nothing. Komatsu could just barely see, out of the corner of his eye—maybe his death would be quick. He'd heard it was fast—almost merciful—but he'd also heard it could drag on and on, the bread and butter of gory tabloid stories, cautionary stories about straying from the path of goodness, the straight-to-DVD horror movies he had no stomach for.

Maybe this demon would be hungry. And eat him fast.

All he could see was red skin, black hair, an impression of awful size, until the rumbling voice made him flinch, eyes closing reflexively.

“Is this all? This tiny thing isn't even a snack!”

There was an uneasy stirring outside the circle—through the glare of the spell's glow, Komatsu could barely make out shifting boots, the motions of people trying to keep from backing away.

“My lord,” someone began, their voice cracking—they stopped.

“Lord Demon,” another took up, excitement and terror inseparable in his voice, just as eager as he was afraid. “If you accept our offering, meager though it is, I promise you will feast—”

With a whisper of air, the demon was looming over Komatsu, claws cutting neatly through the steel handcuffs they'd used, flipping Komatsu over with little nudges, effortless and efficient, no cruelty and no sympathy.

Komatsu opened his eyes to look straight up at the monster, not able to see much in the weird half-light, terror threatening to swamp him, tears still blurring his vision and stinging along the scrape, turning the dirt on him to mud, but it still made his breath catch. It was—a monster, a demon, a _demon_ , but still—

Something in his chest beat painfully.

“You'd feed me enough? You think you'd be able to get me a meal worth eating before I was tracked down and banished, when you couldn't even manage a real sacrifice?”

The demon slid easily to his feet, lunging into a quick pace, and the line of black wizards flinched back, breaking rank. Komatsu panted out a panicked breath, and tried to pick himself up. He couldn't bring himself to stand, knew his legs would just go out from under him again, but he felt so _small_ , kneeling helplessly in the demon's shadow.

“Lord Toriko,” another said, falling silent, apparently not sure what to do.

“I,” Komatsu said, voice rough and broken with disuse. Nobody heard him, he knew. He wasn't sure why he was speaking up at all.

“I won't serve you if you won't even bring me a meal!”

Komatsu knew only the most powerful demons had the strength to keep from devouring the sacrifice provided them. He'd never heard of one bargaining before. He wondered how long it would hold out before it ate him.

Everyone read about teenagers, stupid and sure of their invincibility, summoning fist-sized demons with offerings of sandwiches, house plants, the sicker ones with squirrels or cats.

“I could cook for you,” Komatsu said. There was no one paying attention to him—he was already so much meat—and a confusion of voices and a thick miasma of fear. He was sure nobody had heard.

And then the demon was crouching over him again.

“Cook for me?” he said, disbelieving, dark amusement in his voice. Cooking for a _demon_ —a demon of his kind of power. It was ridiculous. But there was still that—something, in his expression, that Komatsu was doubtlessly imagining.

“If you're hungry,” Komatsu said, faintly. Of course the _demon_ was hungry! Of _course._

Behind them, the volume of the nervous summoners was increasing, alarmed shouts that failed to grab Toriko's attention. Komatsu couldn't focus on them, with the demon so close. He was going to be eaten—

“ _Always_ ,” the demon purred. Of course. The demon blinked once, smiled with too many teeth—Komatsu flinched, and was at least glad that he was able to, that the demon had taken off his chains, that he wouldn't die trussed like a suckling pig. “What are your terms?”

“Terms?” Komatsu parroted, blankly.

“If you feed me, you hold the contract,” Toriko said, matter-of-fact. “What are your terms?”

“I won't be able to feed you _enough_ ,” Komatsu blurted out, stupid even though it was the truth. “I—I'm a chef, I can cook a _lot,_ but you're a powerful demon, and—”

“I want to try something new,” the demon said, as if that was a reasonable response.

“Don't—you won't kill me?”

“Not if you're cooking for me,” Toriko said. “Afterward—not if you cook me enough.”

Komatsu flinched. He _knew_ he wouldn't be able to cook enough. Demons were never really sated, their appetites so much more than natural. But what other choice did he have?

“Will you eat—anyone else?”

“Not if you cook enough,” Toriko repeated. If he was still hungry, then, anyone could be collateral damage, and—

“No,” Komatsu said immediately, shaking his head, only adding to the dizziness of his fear. He'd die here, in this circle, before he let that happen.

Toriko frowned. It was terrifying. “Alright. If you don't cook enough, I'll eat you, and that will end the summoning and banish me back to hell.”

“I cook for you,” Komatsu said, trying to make sure it was clear. He knew it wasn't a good bargain, nothing like the ones that summoners were supposed to draw up, but Komatsu wasn't a corrupted magic-user, the closest he came to the supernatural was buying small protective charms, and he was going to die. Just a little bit later. “If it's not enough, you—you eat me, and that's it. Nobody else.”

“No!” somebody was yelling, part of the cluttered background. Komatsu couldn't focus on it. “No no no!” The summoners were like a kicked anthill, or beetles revealed under a rotting log, an incomprehensible swarm of driven, apparently purposeless movement. The barrier that was keeping Toriko in was also keeping them out—they could cross the line, but it would mark them as a demon's meal, too.

“Deal,” Toriko said, like a cat that had gotten the cream and the canary, sticking out one huge clawed hand. His red skin looked even more inhuman in the unnatural light of the spell circle.

Komatsu stared at it, dry-mouthed. “Deal,” he said, and reached out to take the giant hand.

The world exploded around him.

Some of the summoners were starting to run when Komatsu could convince himself to look. Toriko had been a deadly presence before, and now he was a wildfire compared to a bonfire—both fierce, both could kill, but a difference of magnitude between them.

But he'd _known_ Toriko was an immensely powerful demon. And he'd _known_ that it took an agreement with a human for a demon on Earth to tap into its true power.

“Break the circle,” Toriko demanded. Komatsu somehow staggered to his feet, and over to the lines delineating the circle, painted onto rough concrete. He scraped at it, first with his fingernails—short for hygiene and practicality, the roughness tearing at his fingertips—and then with a rock, not sure what it would take—how thorough a break a demon could escape through. It was—it was _wrong,_ to be freeing a demon, to have made a deal with one in the first place—

Komatsu kept on scratching at the rock, even after Toriko appeared on the other side of the line, stretching with hedonistic pleasure. It took a second for it to register in his brain, and he finally dropped the rock and staggered over—not sure why or how.

“Can't eat you,” Toriko said regretfully, looking with _want_ at the horrified cluster of summoners—and Komatsu shuddered, remembering how helpless he'd been, at their mercy, but now they were the ones looking small as him, just as helpless.

But he'd made a bargain with Toriko. No eating anyone—except Komatsu. When he failed. When Toriko's hunger couldn't wait any longer.

“I need to cook for you,” Komatsu managed, trying to focus on that—trying to focus on details like what to cook for a demon, how much he could manage and still have it turn out good. Did _'good'_ matter? Demons ate people whole, bones and blood and hair and skin and all, not wasting _anything_. It wasn't like—like you could ask a demon what his favorite kind of sandwich was, if he wanted French or Korean, if he was in the mood for a casual dining experience or a formal one.

Well. Komatsu could hardly ask for the staff he'd need for a formal meal. Even if Toriko really _wouldn't_ eat anyone, anyone at all except Komatsu, it still would be—there was no way he could ask anyone to serve a demon.

Toriko sniffed at the air, clearly scenting it. “There's food that way,” he added, pointing. Komatsu blinked.

And followed in the demon's wake, because what else was there to do?

\--------------

Komatsu cooked until he was too exhausted to move. Each time he slowed down, fear spurred him onward—even if he was pretty sure he had no chance of ever cooking _enough_ , it was still something like possibility. A faint hope. Something to do.

Finally, running out of ingredients, a while since he'd ferried the last things he'd cooked out to the feasting demon in the dining room, he set a final dish on the counter, and sat down, and fell asleep.

\--------------

Komatsu woke up in a strange bed, the light on the walls all wrong, the pillow unfamiliar. For a second, it was like waking up from a nightmare. But he still ached—scraped knee, muscles exhausted and sore, head throbbing. He whimpered as he rolled over, extricating himself from blankets, trying to figure out where he was, what the hell was going on.

There was a stranger staring at him, huge and blue-haired, gaze not unfriendly but utterly alien, like he was watching a bug—something inconsequential, not worth caring about—panic.

Komatsu yelped and almost threw himself off the edge of the bed, just barely catching himself and banging his head hard on the headboard. It took him a second to catch up, but—ignore the coloring, account for a lighter jaw, a less furrowed brow—

“Toriko?” Komatsu squeaked, because it _hadn't_ been a nightmare, he was—somewhere, he remembered falling asleep in the corner of the demon summoners' kitchen, because _of course_ the most overdramatic, sordid literature had been right about demon-summoning cults with nefarious plans and giant hidden mansions devoted to their dark deeds. Did they have beds too? How had he ended up—

“Yeah,” the stranger said with a light chuckle—the stranger but no, the _demon_ , and Komatsu had heard that, technically, demons could disguise themselves, but he'd never thought he'd see it. He'd never thought he'd see a demon at all. “Thank you for the meal.”

“...I'm still alive?”

“It was good,” Toriko said, with a spark of honest enthusiasm that Komatsu could recognize—it resonated with him. “I found you passed out in the kitchen, so I found a place for you to sleep after I ate everything left in the kitchen.”

“But—but, I know I didn't cook enough, I _can't_ cook enough, right? So why didn't you e-eat me—”

“It was good! I'd just get sent back to hell if I ate you, and I want to eat more first. You're just a little mouthful,” Toriko added, with a sharp-toothed grin.

“I'm out of ingredients,” Komatsu said, fighting what felt like either hysterical laughter or maybe a scream, rising in the pit of his stomach.

“We can get more,” Toriko said, brightly.

“...and, and how long until the demon police get here? They have to have felt the shockwave from your summoning.”

“I could fight them off, but not without breaking the contract, probably,” Toriko said, bright grin going a little more thoughtful, calculating. “We should probably leave. Find a new kitchen, new ingredients.”

_'Find,_ ' just like that, Komatsu thought, yes, distinctly hysterical. “Toriko—I can't do nothing but cook until I collapse from exhaustion, I'm going to need to eat myself, and—sleep, and—”

“Okay,” Toriko said, still cheerful. “You are pretty weak,” he added, poking curiously at Komatsu's ribs with one finger—mostly human, except for a nail that was a little too pointed. Komatsu yelped and flinched. A mostly human hand, but it was far far too big, he thought faintly. Toriko was _smaller_ in his human disguise, but that didn't mean much. It wasn't a very _good_ disguise. Certainly he couldn't show up to a restaurant like this. At least not without everyone staring. Asking questions Komatsu couldn't really answer.

He still couldn’t ask someone to cook for a demon.

“Where are we going?” Toriko asked. “I could find us some place. Sniff it out,” he added with a shrug.

Toriko probably wouldn't have trouble kicking someone human out of their kitchen without hurting them. They'd be helpless in the face of his strength. But Komatsu couldn't do that, even if there was a way to keep the secret Komatsu was suddenly a part of. It made the decision easy.

“Alright,” Komatsu said, swallowing his fear. His head still ached, his tongue was clumsy in his dry mouth, but all he could do was keep moving forward. “We'll go to my apartment. I—don't have much to cook. I could...”

“I'll bring you ingredients,” Toriko said, gleeful, his smile wider than Komatsu was really comfortable with.

“Without hurting anyone!” Komatsu blurted out, suddenly worried.

“Our agreement was just not killing anyone but you,” Toriko said, the bright intelligence in his eyes so much more than what an animal would possess, but still totally inhuman. “Technically, just not _eating_ anyone but you.”

Komatsu's breath was frozen in his lungs, and tears were pricking his eyes, but he squared his shoulders anyway, mustering his strength and steeling himself for death. “No,” he said, voice shaking and high-pitched with fear but no less certain.

“Alright,” Toriko said, with a sigh. “No hurting anyone. No theft?” Komatsu shook his head, mutely. “I'll just hunt, then.”

“I'll—I'll cook what you bring me,” Komatsu managed, not sure he actually could, but trying to be certain about it anyway. Hopefully—hopefully his agreement with Toriko was binding enough that his death would be enough to send Toriko back. He knew that the language was essential, that the intent behind the words would be meaningless to a determined demon. Hopefully (but even Komatsu's optimism wasn't enough to pull through to any real belief here) there wouldn't be any collateral in Komatsu's stupid, insane last-minute decision. Collateral damage he would be implicit in causing, with his deal with a demon, when he should have accepted his death, Toriko's trail of destruction leading the supernatural control authorities to him sooner rather than later. This was, as far as he knew, unprecedented.

There was a long pause.

“You can eat what you hunt faster than you can when I cook it,” Komatsu said carefully. Demons weren't known for being gourmands. “And there's less waste—blood, organs—”

“I can eat that stuff anyway, after you're done,” Toriko said cheerfully, even though Komatsu couldn't ignore the underlying menace. There was no hint of a threat; the potential for violence was more of a fact, an inevitability. “If I just wanted _more_ to eat, I would have taken their deal.” He nodded casually in a direction that Komatsu assumed pointed in the direction of the summoners. Still alive? Imprisoned in the summoning room maybe? If they were dead, then Komatsu would—something—it would mean that Toriko was far more loosely bound. If that was the case, the moral thing to do would be to kill himself, before the demon could do worse damage.

“So—you want—”

“Dinner was so delicious!” Toriko enthused, his eyes alight with uncomplicated joy, the most incredibly human expression. Before, Komatsu wouldn't have been able to imagine it on his face, not because he was expressionless, but because he was so alien. This—it could have been any of Komatsu's closest friends, his family, open and honest and enthusiastic. “It tastes so much better like that!”

“You're—you're still hungry,” Komatsu said, still baffled, trying to establish what he understood.

“I always am! But if I'm going to be hungry anyway, I'll wait for more tasty food,” Toriko said, like that was sensible and reasonable. “It's been years since I was summoned, anyway. And then they just kept me chained up. I got to eat the losers of the fights I won. None of it was cooked, most of it didn't even taste any good—you know that thing last night? The fish that was all crunchy on one side?”

“...pan-seared salmon?” Komatsu asked, trying to filter through the incredibly foggy memories from the night before, actual decision-making hidden beneath a haze of fear and confusion and, increasingly, exhaustion.

“How do you _do_ that?”

“A very hot pan to start, patting the fish dry before putting it in, lowering the heat immediately, and unilateral cooking,” Komatsu said promptly, half out of remembered instinctual response to his teaching chefs, half because of the chefs he'd started mentoring, in and out of his own kitchen.

“Will you show me?” Toriko asked, curious.

“Y-yes?” Komatsu managed, swallowing around a suddenly dry throat. This was surreal, unbelievable. “Um—do you want to learn how to cook?”

“No,” Toriko said, with another shrug. “I'm just curious. It looked complicated when I found you last night. I've never seen it done before.”

“Oh,” Komatsu said carefully, trying not to imagine what Toriko had been eating in the past: everything raw, some of it—most of it—human. It also meant—probably—that there really was nothing human about Toriko; so much for the theory that demons were gluttonous humans warped in hell. Or maybe so warped that they lost everything that they'd had, memories and all.

No spices, Komatsu thought. No cooked food at all. Not even raw food like, like steak tartare or sushi. No aesthetic appeal, none of the color or scent or contrast of a carefully-balanced dish or meal. Nothing _sweet,_ probably, Toriko far too powerful a demon to be summoned with a plate of donuts.

“If we—we need to leave,” Komatsu said. “The demon cops will get here eventually, and—I'll call it in? As we leave? So they can do something about the summoners—”

“I left them locked in that room,” Toriko said with a shrug. “You can just leave them there, they might starve before anyone finds them.”

“No!” Komatsu blurted out, horrified. “No, that's—no. I'll call it in.”

“They tried to feed you to me,” Toriko said slowly, and he was normally easy to read, but Komatsu had no idea what his expression meant now.

“So they'll put them on trial and, and—figure out what was going on. I'm not going to leave them to starve to death or eat each other!”

“Okay,” Toriko said, slowly. “They might catch us faster.”

“Is—is that a problem?”

“You'll be jailed too, for making a contract with a demon,” Toriko said, but more like he was curious than like he objected.

“You'll be eating me anyway,” Komatsu pointed out—reasonably, he thought. “If—if that's okay? Calling in someone?”

“Sure,” Toriko said, expression oddly blank as he watched Komatsu again.

“So—so then I'd like to stop by my apartment for spices and maybe some other ingredients?”

“You won't be leaving without me,” Toriko said, suddenly an edge of menace in the room that hadn't been there. “If I can't eat anyone else, I won't let you escape me.”

“No!” Komatsu yelped, aware again that he was prey sharing a room with a _predator_. “Not like that—to escape you! I just—I wanted to pick up spices so I can cook better meals. Because we should probably leave the city? If—that's where we still are? But the wilderness, we'll be able to hide there, and you can hunt—”

“Okay!” Toriko said, cheerful again. He looked at Komatsu, expectantly. Komatsu couldn't help but be suspicious of the way the demon seemed to be following his lead—following his rules, even, even though he had _no_ power, less than no power, to control him, especially not outside the bounds of their agreement. Some of his own chefs had given Komatsu more problems, especially the more masculine ones.

Komatsu looked around, dazedly, ignoring the way his stomach growled. He'd need to eat something soon, but—

“You ate everything else? Does that mean—just the prepared dishes or--”

“Everything,” Toriko said promptly.

“I can't cook breakfast, then,” Komatsu said, and winced. He didn't know how much Toriko would be able to take, how much his appetite would need to be tempted before it overcame the base desire to simply devour Komatsu, how hungry he'd need to get. He looked around, suddenly feeling unbearably disoriented. “I guess—I guess I can try to find a car? Even demon summoners had to get here somewhere—I don't even know where we _are!_ And a phone, I think my cell might still be at home. I—you're looking more—human?”

“It's to blend in,” Toriko said, a little smug, and Komatsu had to choke back a hysterical laugh. The demon's human guise—he hadn't even known they could _do_ that, most people had thought it was an old wives' tale that only appeared in the most sordid, base schlock—was more subtle than his twelve-foot-tall bright red horned-and-fanged form, but by almost every other measure did not look very human. He was _huge,_ eyes flicking around like he was sizing everything up to eat (he _was,_ of course), his teeth a little too pointed, fingernails a little too sharp, clawlike, and his hair was bright sky blue. Like someone over—god, over 7 feet it looked!--with biceps thicker than Komatsu's waist could ever really be surreptitious at _all_. Toriko wasn't going to blend in.

“You might not be noticed in the car,” Komatsu said, feeling distinctly hysterical again. “So—so I can't run away. But I don't think I'm going to have any chairs that will fit you.”

“That's okay too,” Toriko told him, magnanimously.

\--------------

It turned out that covens of dark sorcerers looking to summon demons by human sacrifice worked out of slightly run-down motels with highly modified basements. Or at least this one did. But if that was the case—

“Why didn't they turn the sign to unoccupied and take someone who drove in?” Komatsu asked, baffled and, yes, absolutely upset. “You even said I was too small to make a good sacrifice!”

“And just one of you,” Toriko said, sounding slightly miffed—it was enough to make Komatsu shiver even in the bright mid-morning sun. “But I'm strong. You need a sacrifice with a strong spirit to summon me.”

“I have a strong spirit?” Komatsu asked him, baffled, but Toriko didn't give him any response, just looked at him for a moment, inscrutable.

He hoped not too many people had died before him. That they hadn't summoned other demons more successfully. He thought not—it was only a matter of time after a summoning before the demon cops tracked them down.

Dark sorcerers also shared a slightly banged-up secondhand car, an economic model with good gas mileage. The keys were hung on a hook behind the front desk. Komatsu could just barely see over the dash, and had to readjust the seat significantly forward. Toriko had to shove his seat back as far as it could go, and still didn't really fit.

It turned out people wouldn't notice a demon a few feet away from them, even when they gave him second looks. Komatsu felt like he had the truth tattooed on him, a blazing signal. What he was doing was, by any sane person's count, _evil_. There was nothing to do with a demon except banish it. He would be facing a lifetime imprisonment if they found him and he lived—which was unlikely. A lifetime imprisonment, and countless interviews to determine how he'd done the impossible thing he did.

Toriko would have—maybe—fit in the elevator, but Komatsu took the stairs. He'd been gone just over a full day, not long enough for any of his neighbors to know he'd been gone, with his workaholic tendencies, but Komatsu didn't know if he could fake normalcy at all. He was exhausted, starving, and accompanied by a _demon_ that would eventually eat him.

“Tadaima,” he mumbled as he took his shoes off at the door, automatic. Toriko was watching him, silently. He took a moment to breath in the familiar smell of his house, ground and center himself, before he shook himself awake and headed to the kitchen.

...Food should probably be his first priority, but he started a pot of coffee first instead. At least the caffeine would help. And then he started in on the eggs, and all the meat in his fridge and freezer, and pancakes and toast and salad and—

He drank several cups of coffee, automatically pouring a second mug for Toriko, but it wasn't until he found himself getting a little dizzy that he realized his stomach was hollow, and he still hadn't eaten.

“I need to eat,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Toriko had been a—not silent, he was eating enthusiastically, but an unobtrusive presence, and he jumped when he spoke.

Toriko swallowed his mouthful, then gestured at an overflowing platter with a hand still holding a half-piece of toast. “I know,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “You said.”

“That's for me?” Komatsu blurted out.

“You said you needed to eat.”

“How can you hold yourself back?” Komatsu blurted out, baffled. This was against—everything, every rule that was supposed to apply to demon summoning. The most powerful demons never resisted more than half an hour.

“I'm _very_ powerful,” Toriko said, with a grin that was more than half-feral, terrifying. “And I know I'll get more. If we evade capture, I'll get to eat _more_ new things! But nobody else would cook for me. So _you_ need to eat.”

“...thank you?” Komatsu hazarded, feeling like the world was a rug ripped out from under his feet.

He found a clean plate by washing one of the giant pile that Toriko had produced, and helped himself to a generous breakfast—a fraction of what had been left. When he looked up, the demon was staring at him, a deep frown marking his face, reminiscent of the deep shadows of his face in fully demonic form. Komatsu yelped, almost dropped his full plate out of nerveless fingers, only long instinct saving him.

“Careful!” Toriko laughed, stabilizing him with one huge hand at his elbow, expression evening out again. “Is that all you're eating?”

Komatsu looked down at his heaped plate, over at the serving platter still covered in food. “Yes?” he said. “This is a lot, Toriko! For a human, at least.”

Toriko shrugged, but something about his expression was fascinated. “You are kind of shrimpy.”

“Hardly more than a mouthful,” Komatsu said, terrified all over again. Toriko sniffed at the air, expression going darker for a second. “I—but Toriko, you're huge by _anyone's_ standards, I've never seen a human as big as you even right now!”

“Really?” He sounded kind of fascinated, like he couldn't quite believe that he wasn't a normal size.

“Really!”

“More for me, then.” Toriko snagged the rest of the serving platter, and the remains disappeared long before Komatsu was even halfway done with his own, much smaller, plate.

 

Komatsu washed the dishes, Toriko watching in what might be fascination, what was probably—and Komatsu hoped it wasn't, but he knew just how faint that hope was—hunger. He packed quickly, then re-packed, needing to pare down what he brought. One pan, one skillet, nothing like enough for Toriko's appetite—he'd have to improvise. Spit-roasting, fish baked in clay, the kind of food he'd learned to cook camping with a handful of other chefs one summer, during a rare break from culinary classes. He didn't know what else. It would probably be harder to keep up with Toriko's appetite in the woods, or at least to produce enough food that was still interesting to the demon, whatever that meant, without the benefits of a kitchen with an oven and full range—but he didn't know what else to do.

Finally, he called his manager. “This is Komatsu—I'm so so sorry, I'm sorry, but there's been a family emergency, I have to go—I'll be gone at least a few weeks before I can return. I'm so sorry for the disruption!”

Leaving a message left him feeling like a coward, that he couldn't say it directly. There was no family emergency, of course, but if he just up and disappeared from the Hotel Gourmet, his staff would know something was wrong. Running away to the middle of nowhere to deal with a vague, undefined emergency or event, for a couple of weeks with no defined end date or forewarning, was also incredibly out of character for him, he knew, but at least it would keep them from calling the police. Hopefully. At least not first thing. There shouldn't be anything to connect him to demons, dark magic summoning, and homicidal cults running out of the basements of roadside motels.

He really wanted to take a nap. But that would leave a bored, hungry demon alone and unwatched in a residential neighborhood, a fairly quiet one but still part of a major city. And Komatsu couldn't trust that he'd done a good enough job with the contract he'd agreed to—one scrabbled together out of desperation and insanity, nothing at all like the careful documents an actual sorcerer would piece together.

Most of his spice cabinet was packed up, his knives carefully cleaned and put away, with just the slightest hint of fear about how they could be perceived as a weapon—but he was not and could never be a danger to Toriko.

Komatsu got started on the dishes. Toriko was still watching him, still apparently fascinated, although Komatsu didn't know what the appeal was, watching him elbow-deep in suds, perched on a stool to make up for his height. Was it watching a human—somewhat—relaxed around him? Just something about the whole experience of food preparation, clearly alien to him and just as clearly something he was fascinated by? It was—strange, and a little terrifying, to have someone watching him, and to have that someone so obviously be a predator considering prey. Which he was. Just—prey with a temporary stay of execution. One that could, really, be repealed at any time.

Despite the warmth of the late morning, the hot water his hands were buried in, Komatsu shivered, suddenly cold.

He wiped down the counters, swept the floor, emptied the garbage and recycle. Sugar, rice, soy sauce, fish sauce, and olive oil went into a bag—the things that, he _thought_ , would be hard to replace in the wilderness. Some butter, even if it wouldn't last indefinitely—nothing would, really, with Toriko’s appetite the way it was. Maybe he could find small stores to stop by? They'd—Komatsu should probably avoid farms, because the temptation might exist for Toriko to eat cows or other livestock when humans were forbidden to him. At least eating a herd of deer or elk wouldn't destroy a family's livelihood.

At least his great-uncle had shown him how to butcher game, years and years ago. Komatsu had always been terrible at hunting, but—Toriko wouldn't be. Even if he startled the deer, there was very little that could stand up to a hunting demon. Nothing, really, short of—maybe—an army.

( _“I'm very powerful,”_ Toriko had said. He had willpower that went above and beyond that shown by even the strongest demons Komatsu had ever heard about.)

...His great-uncle, who had spent every summer for years and years in a rural mountain cabin, rustic—no electricity, a water pump that his great-uncle had considered a modern luxury—and _isolated_. But he was old, now, his health too weak for him to be hours from a hospital, too weak to cook for himself over a wood fire, to be so entirely self-sufficient. The cabin was empty.

There would be beds—simple ones, with ancient mattresses, and Komatsu was pretty sure that there was no way that Toriko would fit onto a twin bed, or even two pushed together, but he also wasn't at all sure that demons slept—and shelves, rough counters, a sink, a wood stove for chill early mornings and for cooking. It wouldn't be a modern kitchen, full of conveniences, and it wouldn't be familiar to Komatsu the way his own apartment kitchen was, or the Hotel Gourmet kitchen, but it would be easier than trying to camp, and Komatsu had no idea what else he could do.

Komatsu added a few changes of clothes, a jacket, his hiking boots, and a spare apron into his backpack, no idea at all how long he should pack for. Days? Weeks? How long would he last? How long was he going to have left to _live?_

“I'm ready to go,” Komatsu told Toriko, a little nervously. The demon brightened a bit, maybe, but he was already almost—cheerful, had maintained an easy good nature, or at least a vague impression of it. It was terrifying, Komatsu thought, really. Not as terrifying as anger or a more-obvious hunger would have been, but...

But a demon would never really be anything _but_ terrifying.

“I'm _hungry,_ ” Toriko said, but without much bite to it. Komatsu winced, thinking--

His stash of snack foods, for when he was working too hard for a proper meal, and unexpected visitors, and for movie nights, went into a bag, almost overflowing, which he handed to Toriko. “Bring this down to the car?” he found himself asking, automatically. “Or, um, er—”

“Sure,” Toriko said easily, sniffing at the snacks with interest—but not immediately digging in, which was still _strange_. He was a _demon_. It was unnatural.

Not that anything about this was normal or natural, at all. Starting with the circumstances, ending with Toriko himself. Komatsu hadn't, of course, ever met a demon—he was a good citizen, a _painfully ordinary_ citizen, not a violent murderer. And he knew better than to assume that the books and movies and lurid dramas were accurate. But he still couldn't help but think that Toriko wasn't anything like he should have been, anyway.

With just another moment's hesitation, Komatsu grabbed some bottles of water and juice for the drive, well aware that he was, bizarrely, preparing for a road trip of sorts. A road trip to an isolated area where the volatile creature of devouring evil with him would be, hopefully, less dangerous.

“Okay,” he said, shouldering his backpack, a few bags on his deceptively strong arms—he was, after all, a chef, used to wrestling with bread dough and mincing vegetables and creaming butter. And Toriko had his snacks, so—

“Let's go,” he said finally, and Toriko _grinned,_ making the discomfort in the pit of Komatsu's stomach flare stronger for a second. Was he walking into some kind of trap? _He wasn't a sorcerer_. He had no experience with this, any of this.

Toriko followed him into the hallway, looming at his heels, and if he was any smaller or more harmless, it would have been almost charming, maybe—like a curious, over-sized puppy. A hungry one, waiting for dinner.

Komatsu locked his door automatically, grateful that he didn't have any pets or even plants to worry about. No real need to track down a house sitter. No spouse or children to worry about, just his parents, and they talked irregularly, almost never visited. Key in his pocket, an extra pat down for his wallet, and there were the car keys for the demon summoners' car.

Toriko still looked ridiculous, squished into the front seat, and it _still_ felt like he was looming over Komatsu. He was already digging through bags and packages of nuts, chips, and jerky; it wasn't going to last long.

Komatsu tried to push that thought out of his mind, and turned on the car, and turned his attention to the road, and pointed himself out of the city, headed towards the mountains.

-End Chapter 1-


	2. Rising Tension

Komatsu was stiff after driving for hours, a lot of it on tiny, twisting mountain roads. He was hungry himself, he knew that Toriko had to be—there had never been any reports of any demon having too much to eat, just not enough time to eat what they had—and they were finally at the cabin. It was just as isolated as he remembered, a little more run-down with time and without the upkeep his uncle had provided. Hopefully the roof was still sound.

“I—we can stay here,” Komatsu said finally, his voice a little rusty with thirst and disuse. “I don't know where else to hide you—but I figure you could go hunting? It's a long ways to the next town, but I can go there for groceries when I need to--” _‘If I live that long’_ went unsaid. “--I have some savings. If that's okay...?”

“Okay!” Toriko said, unfolding himself from his seat and stretching luxuriously, huge and vibrant in the woods, not even the huge trees enough to make him look small. “I can smell animals out there—and plants you can eat too?”

Komatsu nodded, mutely, for a second, before shaking it off. “Uh—yes! I know there are berries, and some wild greens—morels—um, can demons even _get_ sick? From eating poisoned food?”

Toriko looked at him carefully. “Not easily,” he said, finally.

“So if I can eat it, you should be able to, too? I don't want to accidentally poison you! Or, or—food allergies—”

“No, don't worry about that,” Toriko said, laughing. “I was wondering if you were going to try to poison me, but I don't think _you_ can. You never studied magic, did you?”

Komatsu stared at him, stunned. “No,” he squeaked. “I'm—you know. I'm a chef, no magic at all. I—I'd never thought of _poisoning_ you! Do—do you need me to taste the things I make, or...?”

“You'd need a demon poison to kill me,” Toriko said with a shrug. “So you couldn't, even if you tried. It's fine.”

“And food should be—good. Nourishing. It's to, to— _feed you_ , not kill you! I wouldn't—”

It was Toriko's turn to look surprised. “Huh. I—you would think that, wouldn't you? It's weird. You keep on cooking for _me._ ”

“We did make a bargain, Toriko,” Komatsu couldn't help but say. It certainly wasn’t something he was going to forget.

The silence that fell was thick, and strange. Komatsu finally shut his car door, headed to the hood to grab his bags, but Toriko beat him there, lifting everything effortlessly. Komatsu gaped at him a bit, then nodded. “Over here,” he said, uselessly, and Toriko fell into step behind him.

The padlock on the door wouldn't keep out anyone even remotely determined, and the key was hidden under a rock anyway, right where it had always been. It was a little like breaking and entering when Komatsu opened the door after wrestling for a moment with the old lock, like he was doing something forbidden. It certainly wasn't sanctioned. But what other option did he have? And his great-uncle would probably never know.

Even if Komatsu died here, a demon wouldn’t leave behind any trace. He’d be eaten up, bones and all.

“Food in the kitchen, please,” Komatsu said, dropping his own pack of personal items just in the front door.

“What is all of this?” Toriko asked, frowning as he set bags on the counter, holding out the bag of spices in particular. “It smells really strong—”

It was Komatsu's turn to stare at him in blank, shocked surprise.

But. Demon. A demon who loved _food_ , apparently, not just sating his endless appetite, and a demon who knew nothing about actual food prep.

“Herbs and spices,” Komatsu said, then paused. “Um--aromatics? To add flavor to the food?”

Toriko snuck a glance over at him, a curious sideways slide, before turning his attention back to the bag, sniffing more deeply, nose wrinkling just a bit but deeply curious.

“A dish should be a harmonious melding of ingredients, and sometimes it’s as simple as adding salt, but other times--herbs can excite the senses, emphasize the qualities of something, make it a more complex flavor. Or define cuisines! Here, let me--”

Toriko moved aside easily when Komatsu hesitated, hand outstretched but not wanting or willing to step into the demon’s personal space. That made it easier to move over, heft down the bag and root around. “You can taste? I mean, for the most part, these need heat and-or oil and-or moisture to bring out the full flavor--this is turmeric, a dried ground root somewhat related to ginger, which can be dried and powdered like this, too. I prefer ginger fresh, though, usually--it’s very aromatic and loses a lot of complexity when it’s ground. But ground ginger incorporates more easily into baked goods, for example.”

Komatsu twisted off the cap on a jar of turmeric and dipped in a finger, licking it off in demonstration, then offered it to Toriko. When the demon took the jar, he turned around to look for the big skillet, and--

Wood stove. Of course. Nothing was going to happen immediately.

When he looked back, Toriko had one finger stained turmeric yellow, and a just slightly baffled expression on his face.

“I’ll get a fire going in here so I can start cooking once the stove warms--and then I can show you what heat does? But if you want to--here’s the rest. Most won’t taste like much, but you can smell them?”

“What about this one?” Toriko demanded, handing back the jar of turmeric.

“Indian food,” Komatsu said promptly. “Curries. Sometimes it’s used as a coloring agent, or as a cheaper replacement for saffron--saffron is the hand-picked sepals of crocus flowers, and very expensive. It’s bitter, a little earthy.”

Komatsu put the saffron to the side, then added coriander, cumin. Mustardseed, where was the cayenne--

Komatsu turned just in time to watch Toriko lick bright red off his finger with a tongue that was a little too long and flexible to be purely human. Apparently, demons weren’t put off by spiciness, if the heat of a pinch of straight cayenne didn’t bother him.

Well, that just meant that he could tailor the curry to his own tastes. That had worked so far. And he had no idea how demon taste buds worked, but--at least similar enough to a human’s that a demon could like the taste of something, prefer one thing over another. Or at least Toriko could.

He half expected Toriko to leave, to go hunt--not humans, at least, not if their pact held true, but deer, maybe fish, whatever else he could find in the woods--but instead he was just a huge presence in the cabin, watching as Komatsu moved about the familiar--if rustic--kitchen. So when Komatsu started toasting the spices, he started talking again. Maybe it was weird--

It was definitely weird. This was a demon, a creature a law-abiding citizen would probably (hopefully) never see. It was immoral to summon one, dangerous and the sort of thing done only for reasons of enacting violence upon others. He hadn’t turned it in, the way he should have. He hadn’t been eaten--the way he should have been.

Once the fire had been started, the spices went into a dry skillet, heating fast, and Komatsu didn’t turn to look at the demon, focusing on his cooking. “Toasting spices brings out the full flavor and aroma--”

There was an inhale over his shoulder, a gusty sigh, and soft “Oh!” of pleased--in anyone else, he would call it awe--surprise.

Komatsu yelped, flinched, not expecting the monster to be suddenly there. A huge hand steadied him.

A little shakily, Komatsu froze until Toriko moved away, rough skin lifting away from his wrist. Biting his lip hard enough to sting, trying to ignore everything, Komatsu poured his toasted spices into the bowl of the mortar he had to the side, for grinding whole spices. Oil and onions went into the hot skillet, and he picked up the pestle.

If it was anyone else, he would have handed over the mortar and pestle, because anyone could grind spices--because he could use the help--because it was the kind of friendly cooking he loved best, where the kitchen was full and everyone laughed, chatted, helped out at their own ability level. But it was a demon, so he did it all himself.

But the silence was deafening. And making him even jumpier.

“So--flavor--you know the five tastes? Sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, they balance--oh, um. What do you _like_ to eat?”

“Food,” Toriko said promptly.

Komatsu almost tripped over the answer--because it wasn’t a _demon’s_ answer. Unless--unless the demon meant ‘food’ to include anything even potentially edible. ...Which was more likely, far more likely than a demon preferring something--

But Toriko had said. He liked to eat cooked, prepared food, smaller quantities, over mass quantities of raw, unprepared (human) flesh.

“I mean--sweet? I--I guess you don’t have much to compare it too--there’s just _so much_ to cook. This is an Indian curry, which is--maybe not practical, it’s a little involved, but--there’s Italian, or French, or Szechuan Chinese, or Japanese or--”

“Can I try _all_ of it?”

“I’m not sure I have that much time,” Komatsu blurted out, too-honest again. The words fell into sudden ringing silence, like a pot lid clanging into a tile floor, clattering to a stop.

“I’ll make--I’ll make a Japanese curry and a Thai curry to go with this,” Komatsu blurted out, to fill the silence, not entirely sure he’d grabbed his Thai curry pastes, but hoping he had. Hoping the chatter would at least distract him from his fate. “Different cultural interpretations of a similar dish?”

“Okay,” Toriko said promptly. He was still watching Komatsu with something like fascination.

“...and I. I’m guessing you--haven’t had much sweetness before? So--dessert of some kind maybe?”

“Anything,” Toriko said, and Komatsu wasn’t sure whether he was imagining the pleasure he might hear in Toriko’s voice, or if he was imagining the threat he also thought he heard. Or maybe both, because how could he interpret a demon’s tone?

\-------

“Do you need something to eat?” Toriko asked, sudden enough--unexpectedly close--that Komatsu flinched forward, banging his hips painfully into the rough wood of the counter, dropping a dish with a loud splash of dishwater.

“Sorry,” Toriko told him, off-handedly, watching Komatsu gape up at him, damp with sudsy, dirty water, as hunched and helpless as an undersized rabbit in the jaws of a wolf.

The apology just made it all even more surreal. Komatsu thought, a little vaguely, that he was most of the way to either hysteria or a panic attack.

“I--I’m fine,” Komatsu managed. “Breakfast wasn’t that long ago. I--Toriko, humans aren’t _that_ fragile--or, um. We are, compared to you.”

“Definitely,” Toriko said again, looking at him critically. “You need to sleep sometimes, right? How _often?_ How much do you need to eat? What else do humans need?”

“...do demons need water?” Komatsu asked, suddenly completely unsure of--well, anything. “I mean--humans--we do. More quickly than food, actually. I… I know you drank the coffee and juice I gave you, but that’s kind of like food--”

“It helps, but it’s not really necessary,” Toriko said, eying Komatsu like--like he was worryingly unstable. Which he _was_ , but there was no way in any universe that Komatsu was ever going to be a threat to any demon. Let alone this one.

“...Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Yes,” Toriko said immediately. Komatsu had to get used to not needing to _ask_ if he wanted more. The answer was implied. “You should have one too,” the demon added on. Komatsu winced, despite himself.

The dishwater was soaking through his apron, dampening his shirt. He was somewhere between too full of adrenaline to feel tired, and too tired for the adrenaline to cut through the fog. The demon had no idea what a human needed, and he still thought Komatsu looked bad. Maybe. If that was what it was. But it was past crazy, to think of a demon as having _empathy_ , or even concern.

The kettle went on the stove. Komatsu scrounged around for glasses, and settled on a few glass jars--oversized for him, too small for Toriko, even in his more compact human (vaguely human-like) disguise. If a demon cared about the _taste_ of what it ate, would it also care about presentation? Did drinking tea out of a gallon jar that used to hold bread-and-butter pickles matter to a demon? A demon who might not even know what pickles _were_. ...He could do a quick pickle for dinner. Or--lunch, or whatever meal was next. Or one in the next few days. Kimchi? Not that he had the vegetables he needed for that. He could find a farm that sold produce from the roadside. Eggs, maybe.

Automatically, Komatsu reached for the somewhat aggressive breakfast blend he favored when he needed to wake up, but then he paused.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t prepared tea for Toriko before, and that probably meant that Toriko had never had it before.

A little more rummaging produced a delicate Darjeeling, a jasmine, an oolong his uncle was particularly fond of, a sencha green and a gunpowder green. And a mint tea, just because. ...He didn’t have enough tea strainers for this, let alone teapots. He was going to need to boil the kettle multiple times. But maybe… Yes, there was a bag of old tea empty tea filters hiding in one of the cabinets.

“Can I smell?” Toriko asked behind him. Komatsu flinched, again, and didn’t drop anything this time.

“Yes,” Komatsu said, automatically. “...green, black, white and oolong teas are all from the same plant, the leaves of _Camellia sinensis_ , but the processing is different--and then additionally, there can be other flavors added in, like jasmine flowers, or it can be smoked for a pu-erh tea--location, time of year, how many times the bushes have been harvested that season, altitude, all of those influence flavor. And then water temperature, steeping time--”

Toriko’s expression was--peaceful, open and curious, as he sniffed at one jar of dry tea leaves, then another. “They’re nice,” he said--Komatsu wondered if he was _ever_ going to find something the demon didn’t like to eat--but…

“Just wait,” Komatsu said, unable to help a little bit of an honest laugh. “Because--the magic happens when the water’s added.”

Silence settled until the water was just about right for green tea. Komatsu poured cups of the sencha and the jasmine, refilled the small kettle and put it back on the stove. “Normally, I’d pour the hot water into a teapot with the tea leaves--and then strain it when I poured the cups. But I just don’t have enough teapots here! Or--any? Maybe one... But I’m not sure where. I do have some old fillable tea bags, though, they’re not perfect, but they’ll do. It’s better when the leaves have room to breath--”

He was babbling, but it was easier, better, than silence. He thought. He snuck a quick look at Toriko, couldn’t read much in his face. Nothing that he trusted, certainly, just--curiosity, maybe pleasure. Even with the more-human disguise the demon was wearing, he looked--alien to Komatsu’s eyes. Inhuman, anathema. His mouth was just a little bit open, subtly scenting the air, the tips of canines too long to be human just barely visible--not the terrible fangs he had when his demon nature was undisguised. Still indisputably inhuman.

“It _is_ like magic,” Toriko said, like it was a revelation.

Komatsu blinked at him, thrown for a loop.

“Uhm--”

“I didn’t know humans could _do_ this! The smell is--wow. Incredible!”

Even knowing that this was a demon, even knowing that he’d done nothing more than pour some hot water for someone who had never had a cup of tea before--never watched dried processed leaves turn to something as evocatively fragrant as a perfect cup of tea--even with all of that, Komatsu couldn’t quite flight a small blush of pleased warmth in the pit of his stomach. People praising his food still meant the world to him. People learning how to taste something new, something they loved, was precious. Somehow, even under these circumstances.

“It’s not exactly magic, Toriko,” Komatsu couldn’t help but point out. “Just--chemistry. Maybe a bit of instinct?”

“Magic,” Toriko purred, eyes hooded, switching his attention from the jasmine tea to the sencha, taking a first experimental sip.

Komatsu had to laugh, and actually meant it, for the first time in what felt like--years, maybe. “I’m not sure it qualifies as magic,” he said, a little wry. “When you’re the demon, and I’m just a cook. This isn’t even--”

“Nobody else offered to cook for me before!”

“I think that says more about being panicked and unprepared and maybe a little bit crazy,” Komatsu pointed out. “A lot crazy. It wasn’t--I didn’t have anything else to lose, then.”

“But you thought I might _want_ it,” Toriko said, like that made a profound difference in--everything.

“...Not really?” Komatsu managed, voice tiny. “I just--I didn’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t. Just panicking.”

“You keep on cooking for me--”

“You’re going to k-ki-k-- _eat me_ when I stop,” Komatsu blurted out. His hands were starting to shake again, tears prickling at his eyes, and he couldn’t bring himself to look up at the mountain of a man--demon--standing across from him.

“You made me six types of tea,” Toriko pointed out, frown transforming his face into something horrifying, and something reminiscent of the red-skinned monster he’d been when he’d been summoned to accept Komatsu as a sacrifice.

Komatsu blinked in confusion, not sure how to parse that.

“...You let me smell all your spices,” Toriko added, weirdly insistent, looking at Komatsu with an odd light in his eyes. Odd even for a demon. For the demon that Komatsu had started to get to know.

“I don’t understand?” Komatsu blurted out.

“That’s not _food,_ ” Toriko said, oddly insistent, even though something in Komatsu’s head wanted to argue with that--it kind of was, wasn’t it? Food was a sensory experience, scent and taste were elements of that experience--even touch, sight, it was a _full-body thing_. Food wasn’t just--calories, nutrition, the component elements, even though that was an element of it--

Of course, to a demon--

The kettle was whistling, so Komatsu moved to pour cups of black tea, and mint tea.

“You need one, too,” Toriko said, insistently, looking up from the dregs of his current cup. ...He’d apparently eaten one of the tea bags, whole, leaves and filter and all. Surely that couldn’t _taste_ good--was it out of curiosity? But a pile of people wouldn’t didn’t taste good to a human tongue, either, but to a demon…

“I told you--it’s fine,” Komatsu said, but he poured himself a cup of tea anyway, black with just a hint of honey.

He hadn’t even started in on additions to tea--milk, lemon, sugar, honey. Iced or hot. He could probably keep Toriko here all afternoon, just tasting tea. But… the demon needed to eat. There was more curry to make, and--and whatever else he could. Plans to be made, grocery stores to find. Maybe if he implied that he was teaching a summer camp, or the chef at a private retreat--that might explain the quantity of food he’d need to buy.

Komatsu busied himself at the stove, starting rice, starting the dishes. When he turned around again, Toriko had a spoonful of honey in his mouth, and a euphorically surprised expression.

And he hadn’t eaten the rest of the tea bags. Which was, honestly, a little comforting to Komatsu, even if he didn’t know why. Why did it matter if the demon ate tea bags, as long as he wasn’t eating Komatsu--or anyone else?

\----------------

Komatsu cooked all day, not at his fastest or most inspired, hampered by a kitchen that was--honestly--inadequate, not well stocked, not even familiar. The woodburning stove was slow and temperamental and inaccurate, the pots were old and dented, half the things were too high up for him to reach, and there wasn’t a footstool, or even really room for one. Not with Toriko taking up what felt like more than half the kitchen, an overwhelming presence even when he was quiet. Komatsu could almost feel the weight of his attention on him, and it prickled up his spine, an instinctual understanding that he was _prey_.

Prey, but with a stay of execution.

And he couldn’t cook fast enough. Even if he had his staff, and his restaurant kitchen, and the inspiration. Enough sleep.

He had a quartet of gorgeous eggplant, though, and the wood stove opened up some other possibilities. You could char eggplant--or tomatoes or corn or peppers, or almost anything else--with a gas stove, and you could do a pretty good imitation with a broiler setting in an electric oven, but nothing was quite the same as real wood smoke. Once he managed to dig up the tongs, and verified that he had brought--on a whim--tahini, and his yeast, he started in on the sponge for pita bread, and then roasting eggplant for baba ganoush.

“So you burn things sometimes,” Toriko said, watching him with contented eyes from his slump across the table, head propped up on a fist as he waited--apparently patiently--for his next course.

“Sometimes on accident,” Komatsu admitted, automatically. “On purpose--charring food can introduce another dimension--not quite bitter, but--darker? Smoky, complex--and the wood smoke adds in another element of flavor--I had a friend serve me rack of lamb with nothing but salt, cooked over grapewood, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever had! Cooking is--combining complex flavors, sometimes, but it can also be elevating one single thing to its most perfect state?”

...It was like tutoring very young cooks, almost, or his nieces and nephews and youngest cousins.

“Some foods you--I, I guess, since you can really eat _anything_ apparently--anyway, some foods humans can’t eat raw, but can eat cooked, because cooking breaks down the compounds that are harsh or indigestible to us. Others just don’t taste good uncooked. So I mean, you can try raw eggplant if you want…”

Toriko nodded eagerly, and Komatsu shrugged--he had warned him--and passed him a little slice of raw eggplant. The face Toriko made when he tried it--supremely unimpressed, although it didn’t stop the demon from chewing and swallowing it--was again, somewhat comforting, that there were things he didn’t like, and somewhat confusing.

Everyone knew that demons needed to eat, always needed _more_ , that they were appetite personified. No one--no one at _all_ , as far as Komatsu knew--had thought about what demons would like the taste of. Or whether or not their tastes would mirror human tastes.

He finished slicing up the eggplant he’d cut into for Toriko to taste, rubbed the sides down with salt, put it aside to rest, pulled the parmesan cheese out of the ice chest and grated some of it into a bowl, added in a little fresh pepper. Toriko also got a slice of cheese. ...Another thing he’d probably never tasted before. Before Komatsu.

“The salt draws out the bitterness that eggplant can have,” Komatsu explained, rinsing the salt off his eggplant slices, patting them dry, arranging them on a baking sheet, topping each one with cheese. “So this--it’s going to be simpler, when it’s done, just eggplant and a little cheese, some salt, some pepper--the eggplant is the star, but it’s also the star of baba ganoush? Which is roasted eggplant, tahini or sesame paste, garlic, lemon, more flavors, and very strong flavors. But in the one, it’s highlighting a very few limited tastes. In the other, it’s combining them. If--if that makes sense?”

Toriko nodded, slowly.

Komatsu passed him a spoonful of tahini, a slice of lemon, a clove of garlic--which Toriko ate whole, somewhere between upset and ecstatic--and then followed it up with raw sesame seeds, toasted sesame seeds, and then rice with sesame-nori furikake, another portion of rice with sesame oil and a fried egg, to contrast with the tahini.

“You can make sesame seed candy, too,” Komatsu found himself saying, a little regretful he didn’t have any. “Like a peanut brittle, almost--oh. You haven’t had peanut brittle, either.”

It was so hard not to relax into the familiar, into trying explain the things he loved most--food, cooking, discovering new flavors--to someone who was so new to them.

When the slices of eggplant topped with parmesan cheese were soft and good, the charred eggplant was almost cool, at least cool enough for Komatsu to peel it. And the pita dough had risen, so he could punch it down, biting back another flurry of words about gluten and flour and yeast and metabolic processes, the tangent into beer, wine, distillation, flavoring spirits and cooking with them--

The pita bread wasn’t going to be ready for a while, and the baked eggplant slices were getting cold. Komatsu shrugged, and served Toriko most of the eggplant, mixed up the baba ganoush and served that with a pack of crackers that had somehow escaped Toriko so far.

“They’re both eggplant, they’re both dishes where eggplant _stars_ , but--different ways to approach the ingredients.”

“They’re both delicious,” Toriko said, sounding pleased as punch, even if the expression was a little more terrifying, harder to decipher. “...but yeah. Different. I like how many different ways something can taste.”

Komatsu tried not to think about human flesh being one of those things he tasted, and shoved a cracker into his mouth instead, and checked absently on the pita. He could serve it with meat--he had some beef that would work, marinated in lemon long enough to make it a little more tender--and tomatoes and pepperoncini and feta, dressed with olive oil and fresh herbs.

Was it strange that so much of what he served to Toriko was meatless? When everyone knew that it was living flesh that demons desired most.

But the demon hadn’t complained yet. Hadn’t eaten him yet, either.

\--------------------------

Komatsu cooked until he was too tired to stay upright, then crawled miserably into bed. He was exhausted, but he still couldn’t sleep, too-aware of Toriko sitting in a corner of the open-floor cabin. His eyes shone oddly in the light, like a wild animal, the faint moonlight catching the tapetum lucidum of his eyes.

\----------------------------

Komatsu woke up aching. He was stiff from hours driving, followed by hours on his feet, cooking. It was the tension, too, the stress leaving him with knotted muscles, shoulders achingly tight.

He didn’t want to get up and cook. He--wanted to cry, honestly. Curl up and maybe go out for breakfast later, or eat toast in his pajamas then get back into bed. But the bed was really a rough camping mattress, ancient and lumpy, and there was a demon, watching him alertly from the other side of the tiny cabin.

Komatsu flinched, and dragged himself out of bed, trying to ignore the phantom feeling--real or imagined--of the demon’s eyes tracking him.

It was the start of another day, and Komatsu wasn’t dead yet. He didn’t know if the demon would just eat him if he went back to bed, instead of starting to cook--it was already strange, alarming enough, that he had the patience to let Komatsu sleep.

“Good morning,” Komatsu said, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet his--his _guest’s_ eyes.

Instead he put on the tea kettle, pulled out a strong blend that took milk well, and turned to breakfast preparation. A big pot of oatmeal, with the good steel-cut oats, and he cut in apples, chopped walnuts to add in after cooking, grated in nutmeg and added a pinch of cinnamon and clove, a big spoonful of honey.

Toriko was definitely watching him now. Komatsu tried to ignore that, too. 

He poured the tea, then hesitated for just a second before he added milk to Toriko’s cup without asking, handing it over wordlessly. It was something new to try, at least. It wasn’t surprising that Toriko liked it, at this point. But the pleasure on his face was still--honestly terrifying, really.

It was a pity, Komatsu found himself thinking. Because in anyone else, _anyone_ else, it would have been the greatest compliment, the way Toriko loved his food, hung on his every move--only when he was cooking, but since that was the only thing he was doing--listened carefully to every word he had to say about cooking methods and cultural foods and flavor combinations.

“How is it?” Komatsu asked, automatically. Or maybe something--a demon, he thought, hysterically--possessed his tongue. He winced.

“I think I like it with honey more,” Toriko said slowly. “But my favorite so far was the green tea--the sencha?”

“You can add honey along with milk, or to the green tea, too,” Komatsu managed, trying not to trip over that thought: that the demon had _preferences_ , even if they weren’t strong--even if he liked _everything_ , and he still didn’t know how taste worked for a demon, for a creature that ate as voraciously and indiscriminately and _inherently magical_ as a demon--but if he ever had thought of it, he never would have expected green tea to be a favorite. With or without honey sweetening it.

“Can I have the honey?” Toriko asked, a moment later, mild as milk, and Komatsu shuddered as he passed it over.

It couldn’t be a request, not with things the way they were between them. Not when Komatsu was waiting to die.

Scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes on the wood stove griddle, strong black tea with milk: the meal was old and familiar and comfortable.

He needed to go shopping, though. That was the end of the eggs, a full four dozen--he’d scrambled half, then done fried eggs, over easy, over hard, sunny side up. No chance he was poaching eggs in this kitchen, under this much stress. Still introducing Toriko to the human world’s food, even if he couldn’t bring himself to speak about it.

Toriko seemed a little uneasy, watching him carefully in-between dishes, his attention firmly fixed on the food when he was eating, fixed on Komatsu when he wasn’t.

Uneasy. Hah. It had to be hunger: he hadn’t eaten all night. How long _could_ a demon go without eating? How long would it be worth it, for Toriko to hold out?

“You need to eat,” Toriko said, suddenly enough that Komatsu flinched, hit the side of his hand against the hot stove, hissing at the pain.

Komatsu turned to the sink, blinking tears out of his eyes, but Toriko was in the way, suddenly, and he flinched back again--Toriko’s hand lashing out faster than his eyes could follow, keeping him from backing into the stove again, making him scream, short and shocking, before he silenced himself. The cabin filled with ringing silence, like the wake of a shattered dish in a quiet restaurant.

Toriko let go of him, carefully and deliberately, and stepped back. Komatsu stared at him, dumb. Back to feeling like a wounded animal, like prey about to be picked out of the herd.

“I need to run cold water over the burn,” Komatsu finally managed. Toriko was in front of the sink. “I-it’s not bad. I’ll be able to cook, still, I just--water for the burn. And aloe, and wrap it to keep it clean.

“Can I help?” Toriko asked, and it just didn’t make enough _sense_ to fully register.

“The oatmeal needs to be taken off the stove,” Komatsu managed. “It’s ready to eat.”

He gave Toriko as much of a berth as he could, in the tiny little space. A little horrified, when Toriko watched him instead of eating.

Did he--no. He could definitely smell the burn. Did it smell _good_ , to a demon? He liked cooked food. He had preferences. Maybe human flesh tasted better roasted than it did raw.

Whatever curiosity was keeping Toriko from eating him, it had to run out eventually, if it wasn’t overwhelmed with sheer hunger first.

No aloe, because his much-loved aloe plant--the spiky leaves liberally scarred from kitchen incidents and, more rarely, sunburn--was still on his kitchen windowsill back home, next to the pots of fresh herbs he cycled off and on his tiny apartment balcony. No burn cream, because he hadn’t seen any point to bringing a first aid kit. Komatsu wrapped his hand with a vague thought that he might be able to dig up some ancient antibacterial cream somewhere, then turned back to the stove - he could cook for a while longer, before his rapidly dwindling stock of ingredients was worn too thin. He really didn’t think Toriko would mind if he didn’t cook breakfast food at breakfast time.

“No,” Toriko growled, sounding _angry_ for the first time, and Komatsu’s heart froze.

He was going to die.

-End Chapter 2-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....:D?


	3. Breaking Eggs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No,” Toriko growled, sounding _angry_ for the first time, and Komatsu’s heart froze.
> 
> He was going to die.

“No,” Toriko growled, sounding _angry_ for the first time, and Komatsu’s heart froze.

He was going to die.

He thought he’d understood that. He thought he’d known. But now he was terrified all over again, just like at the beginning--like every moment since then--he just wanted it to be _over_ , on some level, no matter how much he _didn’t want to die_ , because this was--

The hand on his shoulder was an irresistible force; he didn’t even try to struggle, simply let himself be turned. At least Toriko couldn’t force him to cook himself, and--at least it would probably be quick. Komatsu didn’t know if it was true of some demons, that they thought that fear sweetened the taste, but it didn’t seem like it would be true of Toriko. Toriko liked green tea over black, thought the transformation heat and oil worked on spices was magic. But he wasn’t human, and Komatsu was going to die.

Toriko was frowning, and it was a terrible expression. Komatsu felt like a ragdoll, as he was lifted--the uncomfortable pressure of his body weight pulling on his arm, before Toriko balanced him with his other hand--and then sat him at the table.

Toriko had--of course--almost finished the oatmeal, and his mug of tea (but not the tea bag) and, more surprisingly, neatly stacked the licked-clean dishes on the table. But there was a plate in front of Komatsu, and it was full of food.

Toriko backed away some--Komatsu was still staring at the plate of lukewarm scrambled eggs and cornmeal pancakes and extra-crispy bacon, just the way he liked it--but he was hyperaware of the huge body moving around him, the threat of the demon in the room.

He was--going to die. He’d known the clock was ticking down zero. But maybe he wasn’t going to die, because--Toriko was feeding him.

“You haven’t had anything to eat yet,” Toriko said firmly, Komatsu’s still-half-full mug of tea thumping down next to his plate, followed by a glass of water. “And you just hurt yourself--what did I--did I do something wrong?”

Komatsu couldn’t take it anymore. He started to laugh, and almost immediately it turned into crying, and then he was just sobbing into his lukewarm breakfast--breakfast a _demon_ had saved him--and maybe the whole thing was some cruel joke? Surely not the whole thing, he didn’t think you could fake a demon summoning like that, but--maybe Toriko did like to play with his food. Maybe the adrenaline and cortisol and whatever other stress hormones had been flooding him for the past days made him taste better, like marinating meat even before butchering. Or Toriko just thought it--Komatsu--was funny. That would be worse.

_I can’t_ , Komatsu thought. And then he said it out loud, because _he couldn’t_ , couldn’t do any more. Not anything more. “ _I can’t._ ”

“Can’t _what_?” Toriko was a huge looming presence next to him, and it was--

“I am waiting to die,” Komatsu said, and it would have been almost level-voiced except that his nose was running the way it always did when he cried, and his breath kept on catching on almost-sobs, barely controlled, his breath whistling in and out in terrified panic-driven breaths. “You are--you’re going to _eat me_ and I don’t know when, just that it’s going to happen, _sometime_ \--sometime when I, when I mess up or fail somehow, or you’re just _hungry_ , and I can’t, _I can’t_ , I can’t take it anymore--not knowing. Sometimes I can pretend to forget, but--I’m so _afraid_ , I, and then you--”

“Komatsu,” Toriko said, and Komatsu felt compelled to turn and look, pulling his face away from the meager shelter of his palms, unpleasantly damp with tears and snot, because Komatsu had never been a dignified crier, but instead an ugly, messy one.

The demon’s face looked--open, lost, _hurting_ , and it made so little sense that Komatsu had to stifle another hysterical laugh.

“I’m sorry,” Komatsu managed, even though he wasn’t, not really--not in the way it sounded, at least. A stronger man would have been able to keep the demon pacified longer without cracking under the stress, maybe. “And I don’t--I don’t understand why you’re trying to _feed me_. It’s--you know humans aren’t that fragile? That I’m not in danger of dying on you, from a missed meal--it’s just _me_ that’s the problem, I’m just--I _can’t_ , Toriko.”

A demon’s name, and it was so familiar on his tongue.

“You feed me,” Toriko said, and his voice was the predatory, threatening rumble that Komatsu remembered, but it also sounded like someone trying to keep from showing how bad he hurt.

Komatsu turned away, because that _wasn’t an answer_. When something--one of Toriko’s oversized hands--touched his shoulder, he flinched away, not relaxing any more when it was gone.

The mouse in front of the fox, the sheep in the jaws of the tiger.

“You feed me when you don’t have to,” Toriko said again, insistently, like he was trying to get Komatsu to understand something important. Like he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t obvious,and he was worried about it.

“I agreed to,” Komatsu said dully. “I don’t want to die. I don’t--I don’t, even though I don’t want to--I can’t take any more of this, either.”

“No!” Toriko said again, claws scraping grooves into the table as his hand tightened, and Komatsu flinched again. “Not like that--you feed me even when you don’t have to. When you showed me the spices, and the different types of tea. You--I thought you know.”

“Knew _what?_ ” Komatsu said. Crying again, desperation in his tossed-out question.

“That it was different,” Toriko said, softly. “That--you didn’t have to. That you were being kind.”

The silence dragged on.

“I thought you knew I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“You’re just going to eat me,” Komatsu reminded him, dully. Exhausted.

“No,” Toriko said, firmly. His own hands were tangled together now, fingers laced, knuckles white, claws carefully held away from the table. “I don’t have to--how much do you know about how demons eat?” 

“Nothing,” Komatsu said, again.

“We eat energy, too. Life-energy? There’s not a word for it I know, in your language. Normally it has to be people, to have enough power for me. But you--your food is _delicious_ , and I’m not hungry. And… I wouldn’t. I’d unsummon myself first. Just go back.”

“...you can do that,” Komatsu said, flatly.

“We can, if it’s not against the rules of the bargain. We wouldn’t, normally, because there’s nothing to eat there.”

“But why?” Komatsu said, still full of a terrified, desperate ache, because he knew death was staring him down.

“I thought…”

Komatsu hadn’t seen Toriko falter before now. Hadn’t thought a demon could.

“You cooked _for me_ , food for me to eat--you want-- _wanted_ \--to know what I like. You gave me things to try, and told me about food, and you--I know you’re afraid, always have been, I can smell your fear, but I thought it was getting better. That you know that I…”

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Komatsu managed, his throat so clogged with tension and tears that he could barely croak out the words. “I have no idea how to make a pact with a demon, no idea what to do--I don’t know that you’re not going to somehow, somehow escape, I know I made a bad contract--but I _want_ it to be normal. I want… _normally_ , it would be--I like to teach, and you like _everything_. But I know I’m going to die.”

“No,” Toriko repeated again, stubborn, definite. And Komatsu flinched, again. And Toriko deflated. For a terrible minute he looked _hurt_ , like he should have known better, that he should have expected that Komatsu could never trust him, never had.

And then the smooth, uncaring blankness that Komatsu recognized from the summoning circle was back, and. Komatsu could see it as a mask, now.

“Eat your food! I’ll find something--animals--in the woods, and then you can go back to your restaurant and I’ll dissolve the contract.” Toriko shrugged, an easy shift of elastic muscle, and sat back. He was looking at something indistinct, somewhere over Komatsu’s shoulder, not meeting his eyes.

“...but you’re still hungry,” Komatsu said, slowly.

“Yeah,” Toriko said, a little flatly, like he wanted to cut off that line of questioning.

“You have the--the right to eat me,” Komatsu said, waveringly. “I… agreed to it. I made the deal.”

Toriko shrugged, again. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been this--not-hungry? I’m still _hungry_ , but it’s better. Like I’m closer to full.”

Komatsu stared at him, totally unsure what to do with that information.

“So it turned out to be a good bargain for me! Better than I would have gotten from the cattle who summoned me.”

“You have nothing to gain from _not_ eating me,” Komatsu said, still pushing, still trying to figure this out.

This time, Toriko flinched, very faintly. “I don’t want to,” he said, simply. “Not after--everything you did. Because you didn’t _have_ to, and it was. Nice.”

...so he was going to eat a little more, although animals were insufficient for a demon of his level, laughably so, the way food was supposed to be but apparently wasn’t, then just. Leave. Back to hunger, and waiting to be summoned. Because he didn’t want to eat Komatsu, and because--

“But why leave? Why--de-summon?--yourself?”

“You’re scared,” Toriko said, voice low, and he swallowed, face not blank but still inscrutable. “I _knew_ that, but--I don’t like it. You’re scared of _me_. And you deserve--to eat your own food, and go back to your restaurant. And not be afraid of dying.” The demon straightened again, flashing him a quick grin--close-mouthed, no sign of his inhuman teeth--and waved a hand, like he was waving away inconsequential details. “I got to eat more new things then I ever have before,” he added, like that was the biggest luxury he could imagine.

“You--don’t want to eat me? And don’t want to _scare me_ …” Komatsu bit down, unsuccessfully, on another round of near-hysterical laughter.

“I can smell it,” Toriko said, nose wrinkling. “Your fear. And it’s not getting any better.”

...Even phrased like that, it was an _altruistic_ motive, Komatsu thought, dumbfounded. That was--impossible. Demons just weren’t…

Komatsu was gaping at Toriko, he knew, not able to process this, not with the adrenaline and exhaustion and shock, not even without that.

It was, of course, possible that it was a trick. Komatsu couldn’t figure out how, but it was a demon, a demon’s contract, and Komatsu knew less than nothing about it. It was possible Komatsu was just--hallucinating, or that Toriko was simply messing with his mind, out of sadism or for some other even less explicable reason.

It seemed impossible, that Toriko might like him, might want not to cause him harm. This was the demon who wasn’t gorging on every human he could reach only because he’d given his word, reluctantly. But he knew that when Toriko left, he would be sent back to starvation, even if it was starvation that wouldn’t kill, even if it was a hunger for human flesh. And it _couldn’t_ just be that. Toriko would try anything, but he _liked_ things, disliked others. Had preferences, and an incredible joy in food, in discovery, in eating. Even when he was eating fresh challah with butter instead of meat so fresh the muscle twitched even as it was devoured.

Komatsu would be sending him back to that. To unending hunger, to a state where being _less_ hungry was something incredible.

And he couldn’t.

If Toriko was--eating people. Then yes. But he was eating food, normal _food_ , miso soup and pasta carbonara and _oatmeal_. Komatsu didn’t think there was anything intrinsically less demonic than oatmeal.

And Toriko was acting like everything was a feast, not just the actual feasts. Plain hazelnuts had fascinated him, even before Komatsu had toasted them, chopped them, and added them to a salad with sharp bitter greens and sweet olive oil.

He’d said he didn’t want to upset Komatsu.

When Komatsu looked up, wiping at his eyes were the tears were lingering, Toriko was hovering, one hand out like he might reach out, before it was pulled away, smoothly enough that Komatsu felt like he might have imagined it in the first place.

“You don’t have to go,” Komatsu said. He was afraid, he was so _so_ afraid. “You--”

“I know I don’t _have_ to,” Toriko said, brightly. “You can’t make me do anything, really.”

“No! No, I mean--I know I can’t. I’m just--me. But, if you--I want--you _don’t have to leave_. I want…”

Komatsu fidgeted with his hands, wiped at his still-streaming eyes again. “I’m scared,” he said finally. “So, so scared--since this began. I’m no sorcerer or demon-summoner, I’m just _me._ You know I’m scared, but--I don’t want to send you back to nothing but hunger. Because--because you’re _not_ hurting other people, because of our contract. I--” 

“I’m hurting _you_ ,” Toriko said, almost defensive.

“N-no--”

“You’re _afraid_. You haven’t relaxed. Not even when you’re asleep. You _burned yourself._ ”

“That’s not--”

“I got more out of our bargain than I was expecting--”

“ _No!_ No, I want--please, listen?” Komatsu had just _yelled at a demon, interrupting him_. “About the burn--I’m a chef. It happens _constantly_. About everything else…

“I am afraid. I know it. But I… I couldn’t send you back to starvation. It’s not _right_. Not when the cost is just--this.”

Komatsu looked over at Toriko, but the demon wasn’t speaking, waiting close-mouthed for Komatsu.

Just like Komatsu had asked.

There was no promise of obedience in their contract. Nothing at all to the contract, really, except for the safety of other people.

“I’m a chef, it’s what I do, feed people. You’re--I’m terrified I’m going to mess up, you know.” Komatsu stifled another laugh that wanted to be a sob, or maybe vice versa. “And that then you’ll eat me. But other than that--you like tasting new food so _much_ and--and it’s nice. Cooking for you. Except that I don’t know what you’re getting out of this, and I’m expecting to die, and I’m going to miss everything, I’m just--I don’t want to lose everything.”

The silence dragged on.

“That’s everything, I guess. I’m afraid, but I won’t make you suffer for it, not while you’re not e-eating anyone, or doing anything worse than emptying out my fridge.”

In a single fluid sweep of motion, Toriko was kneeling on the rough wood floor, Komatsu flinching belatedly back. Toriko’s gaze was unnervingly direct. It was worse when his pupils bled out to fill the whole eye with unrelieved black, when Toriko went from big to _huge_ , skin bright red, the subtle thread of wrong-wrong-wrong in his human disguise replaced with something overwhelming, panic-inducing, and alien.

“I promise,” Toriko said, very serious, eyes locked on Komatsu’s. “That I will not harm you, or let harm come to you that I can prevent, while we are bound by contract or afterward.”

Komatsu felt abruptly dizzy.

“The--the contract?”

“Upheld. Except you’ll need to send me away when you choose to end it--”

“I didn’t leave me a _way_ to send you away,” Komatsu breathed out, feeling hysterical again. “I just--I thought I was going to die _that night!_ ”

Toriko paused, then thought for a moment, then spoke. “I propose the contract is amended. Either one of us can end it with no blood spilled. Instead of ending with your death, you provide me with food, until you can’t do it anymore, or--don’t want to,” Toriko frowned, and like this, with the skin and the teeth and the altered musculature and the sheer _size_ of him, it was terrifying. “Or until I am no longer being satisfied.” He paused. “This isn’t a fair bargain--you have nothing to gain from cooking for me, if your life is safe.”

“What you get is food,” Komatsu said slowly. “What I got was to live a little longer.”

He couldn’t imagine his life _not_ ending, anymore. Not right there and then, with a huge demon taking up almost all of the space and feeling like he filled even more, with the past days spent waiting for the end.

“But you’ve already more than earned that,” Toriko said, very seriously.

Komatsu burst into tears again.

Toriko was still watching him, silently, when Komatsu looked up, forked tongue flicking out to delicately taste the air.

“You still haven’t eaten anything. You’re so _delicate_ , you need to--I saved you some!”

“It’s cold now, anyway,” Komatsu said, thoughtlessly. And Toriko went very still, disappointed and maybe a little frustrated, then blank again.

...he’d hurt his feelings, Komatsu thought, suddenly. It was instinct more than rational though, because there was nothing rational about it, but it was the same instinct that told him when a steak was a perfect medium-rare even before he touched it, told him to add thyme or fumet or lemon to a dish.

Hurt his feelings, maybe, but emphasized again how very alien Toriko was to Komatsu. How he couldn’t help, even when he tried.

It was--wrenching, that was the word, Komatsu thought, almost dizzy as his worldview was turned upside down, forcibly shifted.

“...okay,” he managed, still damp around the eyes, still shaking with adrenaline, and trying for a smile despite that.

It was indefinable, really, how that alien face shifted, but something made Toriko’s expression go from purposefully blank to something confused. And then the corners of his mouth twitched, just slightly, like he’d been about to return the smile, then thought better of it, stopped himself just in time.

Komatsu had flinched every time he saw Toriko’s fangs. The teeth he’d assumed he’d die on.

“Okay, I’ll--the pancakes can be reheated, the rest--hash, or something like it, it’s a leftovers dish, with your appetite that’s probably the closest we’ll get to having leftovers. Not, not that’s not a problem. And--you can try it, and I’ll have some, but I really only need about half this much, really.”

“What?” Toriko asked, slowly. Blank again. _Hiding_ , Komatsu’s instinct said.

Komatsu blinked, steeled his nerve, looked the demon straight in the face. Red skin, black eyes--iris and sclera both--and hair that was--not black, actually, but midnight blue in the sunlight. “Don’t go,” Komatsu managed to say; he had to swallow twice. “I’ll reheat the food, and--and finish cooking you breakfast, then take a nap. I’ll probably need to go shopping before I can cook anything else, but you can go h-hunting. Um, please stick to wild animals, not people’s livestock. Oh! You could bring back any game you catch and I can cook it--or plants or mushrooms, but I don’t know if you know what’s edible--for me, I mean. I guess I could cook poisonous plants for you, but. I won’t know how anything tastes.”

The silence loomed. Komatsu’s shaking was getting worse.

“Or not,” he said, more slowly. “You… really, you can do whatever you want, I know. But if you’re not going to eat me, then I’d--I’d like to cook for you.” He licked his lips, nervous, trying to keep his breathing steady, trying to keep from speeding back up to hyperventilation.

“You _don’t have to_ ,” Toriko repeated, gaze hardening, stubborn as a dog with a bone. “Even with the changes, it’s an unfair bargain _for you_.”

It was terrifying. But… it also wasn’t, he thought. Or didn’t need to be. “I know I don’t have to,” Komatsu said, forcing himself to meet the inscrutable black gaze--forcing his eyes not to linger on pointed teeth dimpling Toriko’s lip where they peeked through. “I want to.”

“No. You don’t.” Toriko’s tone had gone flat and dangerous, and--that. That was the disappointment Komatsu had seen. Disappointment tempered with something that looked like loss, or sorrow.

“I don’t want to,” Komatsu agreed. “But I do, too? I don’t ever want to leave anyone that hungry. Even if that someone is a d-demon. And if I was _wrong_ , because--I’ve been _so afraid_ , Toriko, and if--you thought--you _haven’t_ killed me, and you could have, and--I’d never expect anyone else to kill me just because they _could_ , because most people could if they tried hard enough, so if that’s true for demons, too, or at least for you, because I have _no idea what’s going on_ , then--then I can try and treat you like--not like you’re human? But like you’re a _person_. Um.”

“But you’re afraid of me,” Toriko repeated, not quite belligerent. And, yes, that was true, but…

“If you’d send yourself back to eternal hunger just because I’m afraid, than the least I can do is try not to be afraid! And cook for you. Not--that’s just because if you’re hungry, someone should cook for you. And you _like_ what I cook for you.”

“Because it’s delicious,” Toriko answered promptly, now eying Komatsu like he might be dangerously insane. The fact that it was a _demon_ giving him that look made him laugh--definitely still on the edge of hysterical.

To be fair, everything he’d done since he’d been tossed into a summoning circle probably did qualify him as dangerously insane.

“This is your escape,” Toriko told him, very blunt now, starting to look actively upset, Komatsu thought.

“But--you said you weren’t going to hurt me?”

“...I’m not. But if it’s not a vow or a contract, you have no reason to believe me--”

“Okay. Then--then let’s start over.”

“Rework the contract,” Toriko said, a small smile finally hitting his face, leaning back like finally something made _sense_.

“What? Oh, no, just--hi, I’m Komatsu, it’s--it’s nice to meet you?”

The demon was staring, poleaxed, at Komatsu’s hand, stretched out for a handshake. He stared, long enough that Komatsu was starting to pull back before one massive red arm tipped with black claws--no denying that’s what they were--reached out and shook his hand very carefully, and like it was an alien gesture.

Well. Who would offer to shake a demon’s hand?

It was hard not to flinch, watching the demon reach out towards him, but---but it was doable. And demon skin felt mostly like human skin, just a little rougher, even where Toriko’s hand wasn’t calloused.

Komatsu dropped his hand only a little too quickly, took a deep breath, squared his shoulders. Looked up at Toriko, and smiled, very much on purpose, and not completely genuine, but also not completely forced. “Okay,” he said. “Okay--so, I can’t really make a proper hash, there’s not enough meat, but really, I think the spirit of it is reheating leftovers in a pan with onion and peppers and other flavorings--so I’ll do that.”

“Then eat it,” Toriko said carefully, looking like the world had been yanked out from underneath his feet.

“Yes,” Komatsu allowed. “What I want. And you can have the rest, and I can--finish up whatever I have in progress, and then nap.”

“Okay,” the demon said, carefully.

“And then grocery shopping, and--you can come with me for that? Or go--go hunting. For deer or elk or boar. I--there might be cattle or sheep, but I don’t want. I’d prefer--if you can, maybe not eat those? I don’t want to leave someone’s family starving. And--and if this is going to last, that would attract attention.”

“Right,” the demon said, voice a little strangled now, looking _confused._ “...I offered to go back.”

“...Didn’t I already explain myself?” Komatsu asked, with a shaky, watery grin. “Will you--please, would you leave domestic animals alone?”

“Yes?” Toriko said. “I just--why are you so worried about _other people_ and not yourself?” He sounded almost accusatory.

“Um,” Komatsu said. And fell silent, not sure where to go from there.

It became increasingly obvious that Toriko was actually waiting for a response, and finally Komatsu managed to find one.

“I thought it was already too late for me,” he said, finally.

It also prompted him to actually get back in motion, snagging the plate of leftover food and heaving his cast-iron skillet onto the stove. Taking a drink of his tea when Toriko pushed it over to his elbow, very carefully. Cold or not, he needed the bitterness and caffeine, sharp on his tongue, cutting through the cloying fear.

Leftovers reheating, he was able to finish off the last few things: punching down the dough that was rising, setting it back in the warm corner for a second rising. Rice that hadn’t been eaten yet got mixed with cream, coconut milk, cardamom, pistachios, eggs, raisins, a riff on western-style rice pudding and Indian kheer in equal measure, then popped into the oven.

...It would have been really nice to have a more modern oven, one with a temperature that was more easily controlled. And counters that weren’t too tall for him. And all of his kitchen, really, either one--the Hotel Gourmet kitchen, his apartment kitchen.

Physically, Toriko would fit into the hotel much more easily, but--but Komatsu could picture him in either. Even as he still was, red as blood and _huge_.

...had he looked more human to try and put Komatsu at ease, not just to keep from being recognized for what he was? Not during the car ride, when a disguise had been necessary, but. After.

Dishes in the sink, and then next to the sink when it got too full. Portion of reheated potatoes and eggs and sausage mixed with peppers, onions, paprika, then cooked in a skillet until it was brown and crusty; Toriko got the other half.

He smiled at Komatsu when he passed it over, but carefully, like he was still testing it.

Komatsu’s eyes caught on sharp white fangs, and paused, before he managed to return the smile.

The silence was starting to get too heavy, as Komatsu alternated bites of breakfast and finishing up the last few things being cooked and washing up, but exhaustion was dragging too heavily at Komatsu for him to be able to fill it with chatter. Even though it felt more doable than it had before, more feasible. Even though Toriko was a blank, silent wall of muscle in the corner, still following Komatsu carefully with his eyes.

For reasons that were, really, incomprehensible. It wasn’t like Komatsu was doing anything exciting in the kitchen, now that the food was basically done.

...If he picked up some extra milk he could make yogurt, maybe. Cheese was a little too ambitious for these circumstances, but yogurt would work. Or cuajada, because he could probably find a farmer to sell him raw sheep’s milk here, and because he’d always wanted to try recreating the delicate smoky flavor. Because food was--it was also about the process. And apparently, it meant a _lot_ to Toriko, to see how things were made, not just eating them. Which didn’t make sense for a demon, or didn’t make sense with anything Komatsu knew, but…

It also seemed to be real.

“You should go to sleep now,” Toriko said, suddenly, abruptly. Komatsu jumped, startled a little more alert, almost dropping the soap-suds slippery dish in his hands as he jolted.

“Right after I finish the dishes,” Komatsu said, automatically. There was nothing that bothered him quite like going to sleep with unfinished dishes still in the sink.

“I’ll finish the dishes,” Toriko said, shortly. And--it was hard, picking it out around the teeth, the jaw, the pitch-black eyes, but his expression looked like _concern_.

“...okay?” Komatsu managed.

That wasn’t anything like what their deal had required. There was nothing compelling Toriko to help--except it might, _maybe_ , get him more food a little faster.

But it looked like concern.

Why would a demon want to take care of a human being? When they would otherwise be sent back to Hell. That was one reason Toriko had to look after Komatsu. Except that the bargain they’d made only required that Komatsu be _alive_ , and even then, was supposed to end with his death.

Toriko had no reason to do Komatsu’s dishes--or his own dishes, but dishes that were still, intrinsically, Komatsu’s own problem, Komatsu thought--except to help.

Toriko waited for Komatsu to back away from the sink before he moved in, making the counter that had been awkwardly tall for Komatsu look laughably small.

For the lack of anything better to do, Komatsu went to bed. And even though it was still morning, sunlight streaming in through the windows, the mattress lumpy and uncomfortable and the blankets scratchy, even though there was a demon washing dishes a few feet away, Komatsu fell asleep almost instantly, and slept like the dead.

-End Chapter 3-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd there we go. :D
> 
> IT WAS SO HARD HOLDING OFF UNTIL THIS BIT, YOU GUYS. I HOPE IT'S WORTH THE WAIT!


	4. Groceries

Komatsu woke up to mid-afternoon sunlight slanting across the bed, leaving him uncomfortably hot under the blankets, and with the sort of confused grogginess that came from both midday naps and sleeping after too many hours awake.

Blinking, Komatsu dragged himself out of bed. Toriko--wasn’t immediately visible.

He could be out hunting. Their--their agreement still stood (he thought) so nobody else had been harmed.

Had Toriko sent himself back? It was--impossible, to imagine, but--

Pouring himself a glass of lukewarm water from the pitcher on the table--the dishes were all clean, stacked a little haphazardly in the drying rack--Komatsu drank deeply, washing the sour taste of sleep out of his mouth.

It didn’t seem like it could be real. Like maybe the whole thing would turn out to be some hallucination Komatsu had had. Being sacrificed to summon a demon, interrupting the sacrifice with the promise of _dinner_ of all things, and then--the demon not wanting to upset Komatsu. Holding back for his sake. 

Wanting him to have _happiness_. ...Hurting, something a little more certain than instinct told Komatsu, hurting because he’d thought Komatsu had--not trust, but some kind of understanding that the demon wasn’t a threat to him.

It was, really, crazy. 

But Komatsu still felt like it was true.

With the clarity granted him by some uninterrupted sleep, and a break from his stress response, it looked like--Toriko wanted Komatsu to like him. Or had thought that he already did, at least a little. Or at least, Toriko had thought that Komatsu saw him as a reasonable being. Not just a demon, but someone to be talked to, introduced to new foods _just because_ , above and beyond the requirements of their agreement. 

It was like someone had yanked the ground out from underneath his feet.

Demons couldn’t _do that_. Except--apparently--they could.

Toriko had hoped that Komatsu could see him as _company_. And that, Komatsu thought, made the difference. He’d hoped, and been hurt, and then just--given up. Chosen to go home instead of looking for revenge. He’d decided, _on his own_ , that even though he could leverage more out of Komatsu using their poorly-wrought agreement, he shouldn’t, because the scales were already tipped in his favor.

He could do this, Komatsu thought. He refilled his water glass, and then walked outside.

Toriko was sitting on the grass, roughly human-shaped again--lightly tanned skin, blue hair, mostly human expressions--licking blood off of his fingers with a tongue a little too flexible to be human. There was a deer carcass hanging over a branch in the tree next to him, some blood spatter on the ground around him, and a small scattering of feathers.

“You’re awake!” Toriko said, almost eagerly, smiling at him--he jumped up, then hesitated, clearly holding himself back, approaching more slowly.

Komatsu blinked.

“Um, how was your--deer?” Komatsu asked.

“And a few birds,” Toriko said casually. “Good--I want to know what it tastes like when _you_ cook it, though.” He seemed, strangely, a little shy. “If you want--”

“Yes,” Komatsu said, even before he could really think about it. “--Um. All I’d be able to do right now is probably roast it, with some salt and herbs, and that would be _good_ , but I will need to go shopping for new ingredients soon.” He paused. “And really, venison is such a lean meat that it really doesn’t respond well to roasting. What--what would you like to do? I could cook it now and then go shopping, you’re welcome to come with me, I guess you don’t want to wait to eat--no matter what, it needs field dressing--”

“Field dressing?”

“Taking out the internal organs, so the meat cools quickly and cleanly, and the innards can’t contaminate the meat. And since it doesn’t look like there’s any damage, I can separate out the organ meat, the liver and heart and kidneys--they can be cooked separately, or used for a pan sauce, or used as a dressing--or pate, even, it’s been a long time since I’ve had fresh-caught game to cook with!”

There was a pause. “...I don’t know how it _tastes_ , but you’re welcome to eat the offal? That--” Komatsu winced. “I don’t want you to eat anything you don’t _want_ to, and I have no idea how things I can’t eat taste to you!”

“I’ll try it,” Toriko said automatically. “If it’s going to go to waste otherwise.” He looked at Komatsu, paused--Komatsu knew his face had to be a picture, somewhere between pained and concerned--and then said, carefully, “Is that problem?”

“No!” Komatsu bit out, jerking upright and waving his hands a little wildly, like he could dispel the very thought like smoke. “I just--food should be enjoyed! I don’t--I don’t like the idea of anyone eating just because, because they _have_ to. Food should be a pleasure.” Komatsu took a breath, squared his shoulders, barrelled on ahead, even if he was shaking, just slightly, with adrenaline.

He was talking to a _demon_. But a demon he’d decided to trust. Or at least, trust enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

A demon who was looking after him. _Taking care of him_ , not because of any self-interest that Komatsu could determine, except that he appreciated the food Komatsu cooked.

“You--I’m still frightened, right now, but I know you really _love_ food. I didn’t--I didn’t think a demon could, like you do. Most people don’t. And that’s part of why I want to keep cooking for you, because cooking for someone with that kind of passion, it’s a gift. Someone who loves food that much shouldn’t--it’s just not _right_ that you have to eat anything, just for the sustenance. Food should be a pleasure. So--so it’s not that it’s a problem if you eat anything! Um, anything that’s not people or, or stolen, or-- _anyway_ , what you eat isn’t a problem, except I don’t want you to be stuck with something you don’t enjoy.”

The silence was heavy as lead, and it took Komatsu a few moments before he could gather himself enough to look over at Toriko.

Toriko was staring at him like he was something incredible, miraculous. Komatsu turned a shade of humiliated, half-terrified red, buried his face in his hands.

A _demon_. And he was worried about how much it liked its meals. _His_ meals, because--because Toriko was a person. Komatsu couldn’t believe that it was all faked, that it was some sort of game. Toriko was a demon, and a person, and he liked good food.

Komatsu could work with that.

“So! What would you like?”

Toriko looked at him blankly, looking a little stunned, and weirdly cautious. Even though his teeth were much _much_ smaller like this, they were still just long enough for the very tips to poke out of his mouth, dropped just slightly open. Like a cat. That’s where Komatsu had seen it before.

“Um,” Komatsu said, a little strangled as he tried to keep himself from hysterical laughter. “I could cook the deer now before I go grocery shopping, although--that’s a lot of meat, it might take a while. Or you could eat the deer now? Or I could dress the deer before I go grocery shopping. And you’re welcome to come shopping with me if you’d like, I know--you were worried about me trying to escape.”

Toriko winced, just faintly. “You _can_ leave,” he began, but then he fell silent.

“...No. I’m choosing,” Komatsu said, quietly, “to stay. To cook for you. Um--would you _like_ to go grocery shopping with me? You can help me pick out what you’d like to eat.”

“...Yes,” Toriko said, slowly. His expression was inscrutable again, as he watched Komatsu so very carefully. “I’ll finish the deer, first?”

“Good!” Komatsu said. And--the weird part was, the weird part was that it _was_ good. Even if he had to turn away, slightly nauseous and still afraid, when Toriko’s mouth stretched inhumanly wide so he could carelessly bite down on the deer’s head, bone cracking underneath his jaws.

\-------------------------

The _lack_ of reaction to Toriko was one of the strangest parts, Komatsu thought. He was a demon: it shouldn’t be possible for him to pass unnoticed, blend into the background.

More or less. He still wasn’t really--normal, even if he was passing for someone who was a normal human.

They attracted attention, but it was attention given to a mismatched pair of people, not the panic of a demon on the loose. Or just a natural side-effect of Toriko being absolutely _huge_. Komatsu only made his size even more exaggerated by comparison.

On the plus side, Toriko had a much easier time carrying all the groceries they were getting.

Which was probably the other reason they were getting some additional attention.

It was _a lot_ of food, so much so that no one would ever think it was just for the two of them. Or for one of them. Komatsu had a healthy appetite, for a human. It was completely irrelevant in the shadow of Toriko’s appetite.

….Except that Toriko kept on worrying about whether or not Komatsu was getting enough to eat.

They’d stopped at a butcher in the little town, Komatsu thrilled that it was still traditional enough to have a separate butcher, and large enough to support one. There he’d picked out steaks, tougher beef for stewing, pork loin and ribs, bacon, a half-dozen whole chickens, an incredible rack of lamb. They were up in the mountains, away from the ocean and major shipping routes, so he’d stayed away from ocean fish, but there were trout fresh from the river, walleye from the lakes. He’d brought the big coolers from the cabin, and they bought ice--it wouldn’t last long, and he didn’t have a fridge waiting back at the cabin, but it wouldn’t _need_ to last, with Toriko’s appetite.

The same farm stand he remembered from his childhood was still there, slightly remodeled, still very rough, and full of beautiful fruits and vegetables. Sweet corn, snap peas, summer squash, blueberries, more eggplant, huge baskets of fresh garden tomatoes warm from the sun, delicate cucumbers. Napa cabbage and daikon radish for kimchi, carrots to go with the daikon to make the orange-and-white sticks of do chua, because Toriko had never had a pickle before, and he wasn’t going to tackle canning in the cabin kitchen, so that left quick pickles. An incredible number of eggs--fresh from the farm, they’d keep without refrigeration. Bundles of fresh parsley, dill, sage, cilantro, chives.

It was, Komatsu thought, probably for the best that he made good money and didn’t spend a lot. And that the food was fresh and cheap.

“The lodge you two work at must be so lucky!” the older woman manning the stall said, laughing as she finished packing up the vegetables they’d picked out. Or that Komatsu had picked out, because Toriko had no experience and had, so far, shown himself to have broad tastes.

Komatsu smiled, stressed, not sure what else to do. He couldn’t lie to the woman, but it was the best possible explanation for the car groaning with fresh food.

Thankfully, it seemed to pass muster.

Eyeing him, the woman handed the last bag to Toriko, and then leaned in, conspiratorial. “Okay, young man,” she said. “Young men--both of you, but I’m guessing you’re the cook.” She winked at Komatsu, who’d kept up a running commentary on potential recipes, uses for various ingredients.

That was true, Komatsu thought, a little stunned. Except that Toriko was neither young nor a man, really.

“Yes,” he said, carefully.

It was very hard to keep from staring at Toriko, hard to keep from wondering how everyone didn’t just _know_. And he didn’t know what _Toriko_ thought about it. Maybe he’d passed as human before, but--what did he think about being treated like someone human? He’d have thought it would have been an insult, but. But Toriko’s face, when he’d told him he was waiting to die, the thin veneer of indifference over something that looked like hurt...

But no matter what people thought of Toriko, he wasn’t going to be labelled a demon; nobody would ever look for a demon at a roadside farm stand. Toriko was eating a cucumber, whole and raw, and Komatsu wished vaguely that he had a little salt to add to it for him. Olive oil and salt and pepper would make a better salad, but--still warm from the sun, fresh off the vine, raw and unadorned was one of his favorite ways to eat vegetables, too.

“I’m going to get something special for you,” she said with a grin, and slowly moved towards the farmhouse and barn behind her, careful on the rough ground. She didn’t move quickly, clearly aging--but Komatsu had also caught the dirt under her rough nails, the loam she hadn’t completely scrubbed out of her nailbeds. She might move slow, but she still gardened.

“...Are you hungry?” Komatsu asked Toriko, in the space that followed the woman’s departure, a little worried about the hours it had been since Toriko had had a real meal. Then he winced, because that was a _stupid question_.

“Not as hungry as I should be,” Toriko said, a little cryptically, Komatsu thought.

“...Eh?”

“I’m hungry, but it’s not _bad_. Even though I should be starving.” _The way I always am_ went unsaid.

. _..always was?_ Komatsu thought.

“Good! I mean--” he winced. His heart was beating faster, body still convinced that Toriko was going to eat him--prey trapped with a predator. “I mean, not good that you’re hungry, but good that it’s--better?”

Toriko smiled at him, carefully, then more easily when Komatsu smiled back.

Like this--like this, Komatsu _liked_ Toriko. Even if he was still a little too cautious--both of them were--holding back, and terrifying despite that, maybe because of it, and even if Toriko was almost visibly biting his tongue to keep himself from asking some telling question a human was already supposed to know, it was still--better.

With the conversation, and the rest, and the white-knuckle force of will he’d brought down to bear on his less logical thoughts, Komatsu thought he was looking at someone who--liked him, too. Maybe? Not--not really because of who he was, he wasn’t that much of an egoist.

It was just that Toriko was someone who had never been given even the most minimal kindness.

That was a bad enough thought that he had to shake away incipient tears, managing a weak smile and head shake when Toriko made a concerned noise.

It left the taste of guilt heavy on his tongue, bitter. ...Even if he’d had no way to know. Even with the way this made _no sense_ , even knowing his initial reaction had absolutely been the right one--even with that, Komatsu thought about Toriko’s expression, when he’d promised that he would leave, something that was more than resignation.

Toriko stirred, in the corner of his eye, and Komatsu snapped to look at him, a little too quickly. Toriko’s hand slipped back, like he’d been reaching out to touch Komatsu’s shoulder, then aborted the gesture, thought better of it maybe.

“Thank you for getting the bags,” Komatsu said, for lack of anything better to say. Not sure _why_ Toriko would want to touch him, not sure he’d even seen it in the first place, or interpreted it correctly, upset that his defensiveness might hurt Toriko, not at ease enough to reassure Toriko that touch was fine, even if he’d been sure that Toriko had been reaching out to--to pat him on the shoulder.

“Sure,” Toriko said, with a shrug, gaze sliding away again. He’d finished his second cucumber, but hadn’t reached for a third. Komatsu assumed to help blend in, rather than out of a lack of desire.

“Try these,” Komatsu suggested, pulling a pint basket heaped with small tomatoes--grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, just-barely-bigger-than-pea-sized currant tomatoes--in a rainbow of colors, white-apricot and golden yellow and orange and green striped and dark purple-black on the shoulders of the fruit, and of course a hundred different shades of red.

He held his hand steady as Toriko took the basket, and then smiled at the exploratory sniff, the pleased almost-purred exhale at the sweet, green acidic smell of tomatoes fresh off the vine. Toriko was obviously still holding back as he ate, but--there wasn’t any reason for him to not eat at all.

After a moment, Toriko held the basket of tomatoes out to Komatsu, a silent offer. His eyes were watching Komatsu, dark and intense, and it still felt _wrong_ to eat a demon’s food, but--

All things being the same, Komatsu wanted some tomatoes. And he couldn’t miss the sudden release of tension in Toriko’s shoulders when he took a small handful, popped the first one in his mouth.

...It didn’t make sense. Except that Komatsu knew how important it was to _him_ to be able to feed people.

And Toriko knew that Komatsu was afraid of him, was afraid of taking his food, and _didn’t like it_. Had been willing to condemn himself back to eternal hunger because of it. And so--when Komatsu reached out for cherry tomatoes, it meant something.

That thought was strange and bright, and Komatsu tucked it away to think about later. Because--he fed people for a living, and that could make it hard to feel entitled to food he’d made if it was _meant_ for other people, even apart from the fear that was unique to Toriko--but Toriko looked relieved.

Komatsu’s thoughts, and the growing silence, were interrupted by the farmer’s return; she had a small stack of boxes in her arms, and a pleased-bordering-on-smug smile. “I know you’ll appreciate these,” she said, passing over a box of small early plums, gold blushed with red and barely bigger than a sweet cherry. “We don’t normally sell them, but we’ve had a big year, I don’t want to make that much plum jam, and you need a treat.” The other boxes followed. “No, I won’t accept any payment. Think of it as a bonus.”

“Th-thank you?” Komatsu managed to stammer out.

“Now shoo,” she said, and waved them out of the stall with a dish towel, like she was shooing wasps away from a picnic table.

The produce was put away in the back seats, the trunk already thoroughly filled, except for a box of plums, which ended up in the front, held in Toriko’s lap--even with the seat pushed all the way back, Toriko’s legs were still obviously crowded, his size simply overwhelming in a small economy car.

Toriko was chewing on a plum, exploratorily, and that--that was new, Komatsu thought. The first meal, he’d eaten everything inhumanly fast.

Another thing to think about later.

“Can I have one?” Komatsu asked, not quite ready to reach over and grab food from a demon’s lap.

Toriko lit up and passed him a handful--one of his handfuls, so only a fraction fit into Komatsu’s palm--and Komatsu smiled back, adrenaline starting to fade away again. He could do this.

Then Toriko bit down, and Komatsu could hear the plum pit still in his mouth give way with an echoing snap, and he couldn’t stop his horrified wince.

But Toriko didn’t eat any plum pits after the first one.

...Komatsu hoped it was because he didn’t like them, and not because of Komatsu’s reaction.

\---------------

Komatsu was shelling peas, a glass (well - a glass jar) of iced barley tea to his side, thinking about pea risotto or pea soup--he’d like to do a creamy, intensely flavored chilled puree, but he certainly didn’t have any sort of blender or food processor with him, let alone a fridge---and trying not to stare at Toriko, who was eating another deer.

It was harder not to feel like prey, when Toriko was hunched over a rapidly-disappearing carcass bigger than Komatsu was, and even when he looked away, Komatsu could still hear Toriko ripping into raw flesh--and skin and tendon and cartilage and _bone_ \--with inhuman, unnatural strength. Whatever magic--illusion, or something stranger, and Komatsu couldn’t believe he was trying to _think about this_ \--that gave Toriko in his more-human guise clothes, the material was apparently immune to stains.

After a while, the viscera just faded, Komatsu had learned. And Toriko was too thorough to leave any other mess, so at least the little clearing that surrounded his uncle’s cabin didn’t look like a murder scene.

The murder scene it probably should, by all rights, look like.

But Komatsu was _still alive_.

Toriko wasn’t human, but he was a _person_ , Komatsu repeated to himself, silently, still trying to drive it in. A reasonable being--someone who deserved the same benefit of the doubt that Komatsu gave anyone else. Sometimes people were murderers, but Komatsu still got into taxi cabs or went on dates. Sometimes people were _demon summoners_ , and Toriko had turned out to be the lesser monster under those circumstances.

Even if Toriko did eat him, it wouldn’t be--malicious. It would just be hunger, insatiable hunger, and a demon’s instinct.

...Drat, he’d gotten his bowls mixed up while he was distracted by his thoughts, throwing empty pods into the bowl of peas and discarding the peas into the bowl of waste. With a sigh, Komatsu started sorting through them, because there was no reason to waste food at all, let alone perfect, tender peas. Really, all they needed was to be very briefly blanched and dressed with butter and salt, and served as a side to something else delicate, maybe pan-fried brook trout with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon and some ramps.

Toriko thumped down next to him, the steps shaking just a bit, and Komatsu flinched--couldn’t help himself, even as he tried, belatedly, to stop himself.

Toriko settled himself, but he settled himself a little further away from Komatsu, like it just happened that way. He’d been licking blood off his hands, with indulgent swipes of his tongue, but he stopped, scrubbed them against his pants instead.

Komatsu tried not to wince at that, too. Because--that kind of self-awareness, he knew that was new, and that it was his fault.

He knew he couldn’t blame himself; he’d been stressed past the breaking point. But that fact didn’t make it any better or fairer for Toriko.

“What are you doing?” Toriko asked, and it was a relief. Komatsu made himself look over and smile, and--it wasn’t easy, maybe, but there was a rush of warmth at seeing Toriko’s smile in return, bright and unthinking.

Then the smile went dimmer, a little diminished, the wide grin going close-mouthed--no more view of sharp snow-white teeth with a little piece of gristle or tendon still stuck between them--and. That hurt.

It made sense to be afraid, Komatsu told himself. It _also_ made sense that that--his fear--hurt Toriko.

But he didn’t know how to stop.

Eyes burning a bit, Komatsu latched onto the distraction like it was the lifeline it was. “Peas!” he said. “They’re legumes, like lentils and beans. So, the seed part--that’s the round bits--that’s the main edible part, but in some peas and beans, you eat the pod too, like a vegetable. And then lentils and beans like I made for you are the dried seeds, so less like a vegetable and more like a starch?”

Toriko reached out, then stopped. Looked at Komatsu, carefully, through half-closed eyes. “Can I have some?”

“Of course,” Komatsu said, and--

He didn’t know if it was possible for a demon and a human to interact with anything like equality, but. He hoped so.

“So this type--” Komatsu rallied “--is shelling peas, you eat the inner part, the peas, and you discard the pod, or you can use it in vegetable stock, that sort of thing.”

“Stock--then you can use it like a soup base,” Toriko said, carefully. He pinched up a few of the pods to pop into his mouth and chewed them thoroughly, apparently not displeased because he reached for a handful even before he’d finished swallowing the first mouthful.

“If you use too much it can taste overwhelmingly like peas, but some is excellent. Or if I was making a pea soup, I would make a stock out of the pea pods, and maybe some leeks or onions and maybe carrots, and use that to deepen the pea flavor even further.” Komatsu watched carefully as Toriko popped the last of his handful of pea pods into his mouth, then grabbed a handful of the shelled peas, reached out--

Hesitated, but tapped Toriko gently on the arm.

That made Toriko flinch, minutely, and Komatsu winced, pulling back reflexively, but he made himself reach out again. Obediently, Toriko presented his hand, and Komatsu dropped in the peas.

“Those are _much_ better,” Toriko said, sounding amazed, and--yeah, Komatsu reminded himself. Toriko could bite through an elk’s femur with minimal resistance, but he could also like the tenderness of fresh peas.

Komatsu settled back into working, fingers nimble and the action rote and familiar: pinch off the end, peel off the string, open up the pod and run your finger down so the peas tumbled into the bowl.

Toriko was watching him.

“...Would you like to help?” Komatsu asked, very carefully, staring harder than he had to at his fingers working over the bowl balanced on his knees. It was, honestly, frightening, like stepping out onto ice when he didn’t know if it was thick enough to support him. “You don’t need to! But--if you’d like to. Um. I realize--that’s, it was silly--”

“Yes!” Toriko said, too loud, too eager, and he was looking at Komatsu, but when Komatsu looked back, all he saw was Toriko’s head turning away from Komatsu, so his expression was hidden.

But really, why would Komatsu think he could read a demon’s expression, anyway?

...Except he was pretty sure he could. Sometimes. Or maybe it was just another facet of his delusion, where he thought he could be safe with a demon.

Delusional, but so far he had been.

So what did that mean?

“Okay,” Komatsu said, taking a deep breath. “Thank you,” he added, and Toriko’s smile was wide and fanged and Komatsu still smiled back, and meant it.

“...if I catch another deer, would you cook it?” Toriko asked him, after a moment.

Komatsu blinked, almost said yes reflexively, but-- “When?” he asked instead, looking at the sun, trying to calculate how many pounds of meat that would leave him to deal with, how many hours of daylight he’d have, what other projects were already in progress.

“Whenever,” Toriko said, immediately.

...It was a relief, Komatsu thought. Even if it made Toriko as a demon and--and as the person he was, simultaneously, make that much less sense. “Tomorrow,” he said, with a smile. “...I saw you eating it, um, raw, and I wanted to make carpaccio. Which is--well, humans don’t eat a _lot_ of raw meat, but we do it, and I--I think you’d like it?”

Toriko looked him over carefully, then grinned again, that unrestrained happy expression that showed off his canines and made him look so _warm_. “I want to try it,” he said--Komatsu blinking, not sure what had earned him that reaction. The idea of more food? But he brought that up all the time.

That he thought Toriko would like it? --That he was thinking about what Toriko would like. Toriko, the demon, for whom raw deer made more sense than cooked.

Toriko, the demon, who Komatsu was doing his best to treat as human, Komatsu thought, a faint prickle of guilt in his hands, instead of as a person who wasn’t human. Toriko, whom Komatsu flinched from when he was too inhuman.

“Carpaccio, and maybe steak tartare, another raw meat dish--foie gras from the liver, if you can make sure the organs don’t rupture, and some of the leaner meat into a stew, or maybe braised? Pan-fried steaks, and a roast is traditional, but it can be tricky because venison is such a lean meat. And--I want to make you osso buco, or at least the cheap version I usually make for myself with beef shanks instead of veal, but I don’t think venison would work as a substitute. And I need more of a kitchen, too, at this point. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Toriko said, a little tersely. Looking away again. Komatsu frowned at the peapod forgotten in his hand, then shifted down a step, moving the bowls so they were more equitably placed between himself and Toriko. It wasn’t, really, any kind of apology at all, but--he didn’t know what else to do. How to not apologize, how to treat Toriko like a person.

After a moment, Komatsu clicked the radio back on. He’d been listening to a cooking program earlier, an interview with the students of famous chefs, and now it was back to local news, but it did help fill the silence.

A road closure because of a washout, a culvert failing. A local political race, an equally local scandal involving small bribes and building permits. The peas finished, Komatsu got up and grabbed a bag of potatoes, filled a big bowl partway with water, and grabbed a small knife. After a second, hesitating, he grabbed a second knife, for Toriko. Because--because Toriko seemed to like helping. And Komatsu knew that all his friends were like that, that they saw cooking like this as collaborative, friendly, even if they were bunglers in the kitchen.

_“In national news, there are still at least two high-level demons currently at large, under mysterious circumstances--”_

Komatsu flinched badly enough he almost stabbed himself with his paring knife, a half-peeled potato dropping from his fingers. Toriko bolted upright, a quick stare around--as if for enemies--before he moved closer to Komatsu, tense and ready to spring in a way that made it obvious how relaxed he’d been.

_“While it is possible that the demons have already been dispatched after fulfilling their orders, we have no live witnesses and little information on the potential goals of the summoning, if indeed the demon or demons did not escape from their summoned purpose in the contract negotiation. As always, we ask everyone to keep an eye out for their friends and neighbors, and report any unusual disappearances of people, large animals, or prepared food. “_

“I don’t think I’ve taken enough,” Toriko said, tightly.

“It’s remote,” Komatsu said, desperately. His reality with Toriko was one thing--learning how to live with a demon. This was something he just hadn’t _thought_ about because he hadn’t thought that he’d last long enough for it to matter.

Faced with a potential future, the idea of being captured--killed or imprisoned for life--was suddenly crushing again. He was clenching his hands hard enough for his nails to dig into his skin, eyes watering and breath whistling.

Carefully, moving his hand in an artificially wide arc so Komatsu could see it coming, Toriko reached out and nudged gently at Komatsu’s fist, pressing it open. There was a momentary flick of fear--he was bleeding, just barely, one of his nails had scored a slight graze--but Toriko withdrew again, repeated it with the other hand. Komatsu made himself relax, or tried to.

_“We have Suppressor units dispatched, along with demon containment specialists, and trained magic-sniffing dogs tracking the magical residue. Again, we have reason to believe that there are two or more powerful demons currently at large, but as of yet no documented eyewitnesses. At least one of the summoners seems to have committed suicide-by-summoning, presumably using his own body to pay for a demon’s services--”_

“Oh no,” Komatsu said, faintly.

“They might have sent it after you,” Toriko said, darkly. _Worried_. “And me. For revenge. But--”

“But mostly me, because I. Because I offered you dinner,” Komatsu said. He hadn’t even known a counter-offer would _work_. Did anyone?

“And summoners really just see us as loaded weapons,” Toriko said, shrugging, looking away from Komatsu again. “Most people.”

Komatsu winced, again. Bent his head a little further, trying to curl up enough to disappear.

“...but you. Offered me dinner,” Toriko said, and the softness in his voice just hurt even more, Komatsu thought.

He hadn’t been treating him as a person, not really. Just--more like a person than the demon summoners who saw him as nothing more than a tool that might try to escape. Because he’d been desperate.

“They’re going to catch us,” Komatsu said, unable to meet Toriko’s eyes. “They’re--eventually they’ll tie the car’s information back to the cult. Or one of the dogs will scent your aura.”

“I knew it wouldn’t last,” Toriko said, shrugging, the obvious effort to look casual. “You’ll be able to go back to your life.”

“ _Toriko_ ,” Komatsu said, high-pitched and hysterical. “Why they catch us, they will send you back to the demon plane and I will be tried for murder or--or attempted murder, there’s never been a demon summoning that _didn’t_ have some murder, and summoning is also a capital offense, and they will kill me while they’re trying to kill you or they’ll capture me and I will be imprisoned for _life_. I’m--it’s not sane, or normal, or _right_ to cook for--for you! For _demons_ , and--I think you’re different.”

Just like that, the fight ran out of Komatsu, leaving him trembling and quiet and exhausted.

“I don’t know--I know you’re different. Or this is different, or _something_ , but. Nobody else would believe me. They’d never--there’s no good reason to make a pact with a demon. I should have died.”

Toriko made a noise, something awful and involuntary, like he’d been sucker-punched or stabbed.

Komatsu huddled in further on himself.

“...I told you, I wasn’t really expecting to live. And--and that’s part of it. I never ever would have expected _this_ , but it didn’t matter--doesn’t matter. Once I made a pact with a demon, I was--”

“No,” Toriko said, and his tone was so complex that Komatsu couldn’t even begin to unravel it.

“What? It’s--I’ll do my best to live. And--and I know that you’ll be sent back once I die? Right? Because--the bargain is my life. So I’ll--for both of us. Try to last as long as I can. We can.”

“I ruined your _whole life_ ,” Toriko said, slowly, like it was just starting to sink in.

“Yes,” Komatsu said, automatic--it was true--then winced. “I mean no! Not really. It’s--when the demon summoners kidnapped me. That was when it all went wrong. If--if it hadn’t been you in the circle, if it had been a demon less interested in dinner or less able to hold itself back, I would have been eaten then. Or if the summoning hadn’t worked, the summoners would probably have killed me anyway. And then our deal--I was expecting to die, that it was just a stay of execution, but--even if--even _though_ I trust you, I’ve still--I’m a criminal, and I left my restaurant without a head chef with no notice or good excuse, and really, the restaurant _was_ my whole life.”

Komatsu shrugged again, uncomfortable. His hands were knotted together.

“--What can I do to make it better?” Toriko asked, suddenly, abruptly. “If I just left--”

“No,” Komatsu said, but Toriko was saying the same, shaking his head.

“No, I’m guessing--there was another summons, so the demon from that might be after you. Probably.”

“And I could still be tied to the event, there has to be some sign somewhere that it was me that they kidnapped, and _beyond_ that, I told you--I’m not going to send you back to eternal hunger because it’s _convenient!_ ”

Toriko set his jaw, a dangerously stubborn look in his eyes. The sort of expression that could be termed muleish, but Toriko was too much of a predator for that to fit.

“Even--when you don’t eat me, that still leaves me trying to escape demon hunters and the police and I guess maybe even _other demons_ , and--”

Komatsu broke off; Toriko looked _upset_. “I--I’m sorry?” Komatsu tried, wincing a little, trying to blink away the beginnings of fresh tears.

“No,” Toriko said, Komatsu unable to figure out what that was supposed to mean.

“...No?”

“No, don’t _apologize._ This--”

Toriko trailed off. Komatsu huddled in a little further on himself. Picked up another potato, started peeling it again, for lack of anything else to do.

Toriko was--subtle, in some ways, by demon standards. Certainly harder to track than most demons were supposed to be, because there wasn’t a trail of destruction left behind him. Even though, really, there could have been.

“So we--make it last as long as we can,” Komatsu said, shakily. “We try to avoid the demon suppressors--um. I want to stay free, but--please don’t eat them, or hurt them. We try to stay hidden, and stay away from anyone who might figure it out, and--do our best, as long as we can. For me, but also for you. I don’t have any way to escape all--all this, and you can’t stay longer than me, so. For a while.”

Toriko was frowning, when Komatsu looked up, and Komatsu tried to hide his shiver, no excuse for it in the warm summer evening.

“...I’m sorry,” Toriko said, finally, sad, almost defeated.

“It’s not your _fault_ , Toriko!” Komatsu said, again, but--he reached out, very carefully, to put his hand on Toriko’s arm, just a little bit warmer than an ordinary human arm would be. “But. Thank you. It’s _not_ your fault, but--I wish it was different, too.”

Toriko looked away.

Komatsu paused. “--Not like that! I wish--I wish we could have met under _different circumstances_ , that--I wish that it wasn’t like this, not that we never met. I--it’s been strange, and terrifying, and my life is falling apart, but I’m--I’m glad I met you? I never thought of demons as people, nobody does, but you--you’re a person worth knowing.”

“I can’t do anything to _fix_ this,” Toriko said, suddenly, surprisingly loudly. “I never thought I’d _want to_. That I’d--care.”

“It’s still not your fault!”

The silence hung heavy between them, only amplified by the small scratching of Komatsu’s knife through potato skin.

“...What do you want?” Toriko asked, finally.

“Mm? I’m not really hungry yet--”

“Not like that. What--if you could have anything, what would you want right now? Anything changed, what--what your ideal would be.”

“...Huh,” Komatsu said, blinking. Putting aside his latest potato for a second. “I don’t--I don’t usually daydream like that, because I--it just feels useless, when I know I probably--won’t. But--but I’d want--to be back in my restaurant, in the Hotel Gourmet. On a nice day, like this, cooking family lunch--not my _family_ family, they--that’s complicated--but that’s what we call it, when all the staff get together for a meal before the restaurant opens, and everyone brings something, or helps out.”

Toriko was watching him carefully, just a little wistfully.

“And--it’s never _perfect_ , you know? We have budget problems and staff problems and we worry about our reputation and business and all of that. But there’s hope. So--that. That’s what I’d want, if I could have anything. Just--to keep on working, to go back to my life.”

Komatsu paused. Toriko was looking away again, and it wasn’t--it _didn’t_ mean that, but--

“I’d like it if you were there,” Komatsu added, in a rush. “I’ve never gotten to cook for you--properly. I mean, I’ve cooked for you, of course! But not in my own kitchen, or the hotel kitchen, and--it’d be nice. I think my staff would like you.”

“...I’m a demon,” Toriko said, slowly.

“Yes?” Komatsu said, carefully.

Toriko shimmered back into his fully demonic form, like heat waves on a desert road, clearing to reveal him in his huge, clawed, oversized glory. It left him looming over Komatsu, and as he turned, it was overwhelming, Komatsu shying back from the shadowy blood-colored monster blotting out the sky in front of him.

“A demon,” Toriko repeated. “You don’t _want me_ at your table.”

“Um--you’re very scary, Toriko! But--I would want you there. I do. It’s--I think you’d like it. I’d like it, being able to cook for you when things were--easier. And I--I trust you with myself? I trust you with--other people, I guess, I know you’re still bound by our contract but it’s not a _good_ one. I’d trust you with my staff kitchen, and well--all of us, it’d be so much easier to keep up with your appetite.”

Toriko frowned more deeply, at that.

“--I _want to_ even when I know I don’t have to. I want you to be happy, Toriko!”

“That’s not--” Toriko said, falling back some--still huge, still red, but expression so very open and lost. “It doesn’t make _sense_. You--didn’t. You don’t--you’re scared of me. You don’t owe me anything more! I owe _you_. This isn’t fair, _to you_.”

“Um… It’s not about fairness, for me? It’s--it’s nice, feeling more even with you, but I like cooking for you because you _should_ have good things to eat. You deserve it, just because you’re a person, and you’ve been very hungry for a long time, and no one’s been at all _decent_ to you--”

“I haven’t been _decent_ to them, Komatsu! I am a _demon_.”

“...But also a person,” Komatsu said, slowly, very carefully. “So you deserve to be treated like a person. And I wouldn’t be comfortable letting anyone go hungry.”

Toriko scowled at him. It was, Komatsu thought a little hysterically, very similar to the expression his grandfather had made when they were halfway into an argument about Komatsu’s life choices, except nicer.

The silence fell again; the radio was still murmuring quietly in the background, and the click when Komatsu turned it off seemed preternaturally loud.

“--What about you, Toriko?” Komatsu asked finally. “If you could have anything, what would it look like?”

“Your restaurant sounds nice,” Toriko said, somewhat abruptly. “That--I’d like that. This is nice, except--you’re afraid, your life is ruined, and there’s nothing I can do to _fix it_. Maybe if I were human. This would be--easier, if I wasn’t a demon.”

Komatsu flinched violently, and Toriko caught it out of the corner of his eye and jumped back, giving Komatsu more room.

“What?” Toriko asked, baffled.

Komatsu had gone pale. “Nothing! It’s nothing. It’s just--I had some people. My family. Tell me that I would be--easier, better, if I just wasn’t--myself. It’s--hard to hear that.”

Toriko snarled, a low threatening growl, and Komatsu shivered again, despite himself. It was the sound of a furious animal--a furious _demon_ \--and it tugged at the primal fear buried in his heart.

“--Sorry if that was too personal!”

“What? --No, it’s--how _dare they_ ,” Toriko said, furious. At--Komatsu’s estranged family? “You’re the only person who ever cooked for me,” Toriko added, more quietly. “Or explained things. Even though you’re afraid.”

“I wish I wasn’t,” Komatsu said. “It’s not--I’ve told you, you haven’t given any reason _for_ me to be afraid. Except, um, the part where our bargain said you can eat me.” Toriko flinched again at that, already heavy red brow furrowing even more, more midnight-dark hair falling over his eyes. “Not that I think you’re going to!” Komatsu added, hurriedly. “Not anymore--you did promise. Um, when the demon suppressors catch up, it’s--I might die? So my, um, body--”

“ _No,_ ” Toriko repeated, his expression painful.

Komatsu laughed, weakly. Not a discussion he’d ever expected to have: whether or not his dying body should be consumed by a demon who was also someone who might be a kind of friend.

He’d finished peeling the potatoes, shelling the peas. Really, he should get up off the steps and go in and start cooking.

“...You should go back,” Toriko said eventually. “To your restaurant. --except I have to stay nearby in case you’re attacked. I can hide nearby--a warding spell? Alter the contract to have a resummoning function--”

“...You could come back with me,” Komatsu said. It was amazing how easy the words were, how naturally they came out.

Toriko looked at him.

“I do want to cook for you in my own kitchen,” Komatsu said slowly. “And--I told you. I trust you. If I trust you with myself, I can trust you with my staff--except. No.”

“Toriko seemed both relieved and disappointed, but mostly just resigned.

“I can’t put all my employees and customers in the crossfire if there is a demon after us,” Komatsu said, a little dully. “Or after me.”

“--I’d protect you,” Toriko said, looking away from Komatsu, ears pointed back in some expression Komatsu couldn’t quite place. “I’d protect them, too. He didn’t manage anything as powerful as me if he used his own body as the price. You’re much tastier.” There was another wince, at the end of the sentence--Toriko realizing exactly what he’d said.

“--For as long as we can,” Komatsu said, slowly. “Before it falls apart.”

He tried not to think about what his staff--his friends and family, in every way that counted--would think when they learned that Komatsu had hidden a demon in their midst.

“As much time as I can give you,” Toriko said, nodding slowly. “For as long as I can.”

“For us,” Komatsu tried, but Toriko just ignored him, so Komatsu gave up on that argument and went back inside to start aloo gobi, and chicken salad sandwiches with pickled fresh vegetables, and blackberry buckle--or maybe crumble--because the blackberries were in season but he didn’t have a fridge, and he wasn’t going to try pie dough in the summer without refrigeration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! More will be coming (hopefully) soon.


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